


With The Door Open

by awkwardrainbow



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, Mentions of Anxiety Disorder, Mentions of Clinical Depression, Smut, These characters are very in love with each other, Unrequited Love, large amounts of fluff, there's a small Christmas theme if you squint, very little angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 12:26:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 75,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8624446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardrainbow/pseuds/awkwardrainbow
Summary: She felt the girl shudder to her touches, heard her hum to her kisses, swallowed that hum as her tongue pushed into her mouth to touch her own and Clarke answered with her own hum because kissing Lexa Woods was like breathing for the first time, or like experiencing the most beautiful thing in the world for the very first time. She smelled like fall and rain and looked like the sky when it cried. She tasted like spring and summer and was warm like the breezes during those seasons.Clarke fell deeper in love in that very moment then she had of all the moments that she had, had to fall deeper for Lexa. Because kissing Lexa was like coming home, and now that she was here. She never wanted to leave.or the Modern AU where Clarke and Lexa are both emotionally broken girls that try and run from love but don't want to know what life is like without each other.





	1. She Can't

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very proud of this actually. So I hope you guys like it.
> 
> Disclaimer:  
> I put it in the tags but I thought I'd explain real quick that the main characters in this work both suffer from forms of Clinical Depression and Anxiety Disorder. I never write to upset anyone or bring offense so if you feel triggered by these things I guess I'd recommend that this fiction is not for you. The angst in this is very little and is mostly pure fluff that follows two girls that are deeply in love with each other. These disorders are just a part of who they are so when mentioning certain characteristics you can understand why they may be that way, this fiction will in no way spend bouts of time trying to "cure" their issues or "solve" their problems but will mostly follow the light-hearted version of their story.

The house was quiet. It was too quiet for a night like this one. Her roommate was never quiet. Not ever. She was loud and obnoxious and absurd, and Lexa couldn’t even remember why she even took the offer to live with the girl after high school, or why she even still likes her, because she sure is a pain in Lexa’s ass.

Despite that though, the house was quiet this very night, and most of the time the house wasn’t quiet while Clarke Griffin lived here unless she went out to a party. And despite how people may or may not perceive her, Clarke didn’t really go out to parties, nor did she really like them all that much.

“Too much limelight” or something the younger girl had once said to her. Something about her fame, which Lexa barely pays attention to unless some girl stops them while they’re out for coffee or grocery shopping at Winco. Lexa barely pays attention to anything famous until Sundays around 7:00 P.M. when her roommate’s show comes on and of course Lexa has been addicted to it for years, so of course she doesn’t usually miss an airing. (Clarke would usually care about living with someone like that, but Lexa seems to be an exception to that rule, to most rules that Clarke has made up in her own little head.) Only then does Lexa really pay attention to the fact that her blonde roommate is famous. Most of the time she just doesn’t care, because why would she?

Despite Clarke being famous, she’s a rather unlikeable person, not that anyone ever admits it on social media outlets or in tabloid magazines. Clarke’s painted as a princess, and Lexa has no idea how they got that image of her when Clarke surely doesn’t try to even seem like one. Lexa never liked the reference anyways; it didn’t seem to fit the Clarke she knew. She saw Clarke as more of a dark queen rather than a small princess.

Princesses are reserved for girls that need saving, and Clarke Griffin was not a girl that would ever need saving. It’s why Lexa likes her. She likes her because she’s mean which is more ironic than anything else.

They’re both unlikeable in a sense; Lexa knows she always has been anyways. She’s sure Clarke isn’t unaware of how unappealing her attitude can be to most. Clarke being unlikeable, mean and even quite cold to others was actually a bit unexpected however. Clarke was all pretty blue eyes and blonde hair and nice teeth and a body to die for, Clarke was in movies and Lexa’s favorite TV show and could sing better than most people in the world, but Clarke… Clarke did not like people. Lexa can’t remember if she was like that in high school or not. The girls didn’t really talk to each other unless they were at a party, and they were usually wasted beyond repair at that point, dancing together and making jokes they’d never make sober.

Lexa didn’t mind that Clarke’s attitude could be so unappealing or that she didn’t seem to like people because, well, Lexa didn’t either. It’s probably the only reason the two get along as well as they do. Despite having a lot more in common than Lexa would have ever expected, she doesn’t like people, not even celebrities are above that.

But somehow, she likes Clarke Griffin, and somehow Clarke Griffin at least likes her a little bit because they wouldn’t be living together if that weren’t the case. The blonde even painted her originally spare bedroom teal (Lexa’s favorite color) before she ever even asked Lexa to move in. Lexa’s sure nobody else even crossed the blonde’s mind when she considered living with someone. Not that it makes much sense for Clarke to live with someone at all; she can live comfortably on her own, in this nice house without Lexa’s help at all.

But a part of Clarke is lonely, and it’s a void Lexa fills. Lexa likes the responsibility of making Clarke feel safer, it fills her own voids she doesn’t ever care to talk about.

Clarke pays most of the utilities; most of the rent, even buys most of the food. Lexa was just a literature student, who manages to scrap by on the money she makes selling her short stories to the local newspaper. They had a thing for horror, and Lexa was brilliant at that, beyond brilliant actually. Dark things were always the brunette’s favorite, ever since she was very young.

Clarke didn’t care how much money Lexa was making, she didn’t even care that Lexa could barely provide for half of this house that Clarke for some reason wanted to buy because she fell in love with it upon the moment she saw it. Clarke just likes Lexa’s stories and the mutual interest in not liking other people.

And Clarke is lonely.

She’d never admit such a thing out loud, not ever. She’d probably kill Lexa if the brunette even tried to get her too, but the truth of the matter was that Clarke was lonely, and she only trusted Lexa with that knowledge and the responsibility of fixing her when she hurts.

Lexa likes that about her too. Lexa likes being needed even if hearing someone say such a thing would make her turn on her heels and speed out of the building so fast you could probably see her emanate smoke. She likes it because most days, even though it can be utterly ridiculous, she thinks the whole world hates her. In a sense, she needs Clarke to need her, and though she hates co-dependency, she can’t help that, that is just the way it has become between the two of them.

That’s why, more often than not, this living situation worked out for the both of them. Despite the irritation paparazzi caused, or the every two second stops fans would force upon them when they went to a club or a restaurant just to get a bite to eat, Lexa liked this arrangement. Clarke didn’t even like leaving the house that much, unless it was for work, and Lexa, Lexa felt the same way. They seemed to feel the same way about most things, which is rare to find in another person; like they’re the same person but yet completely and utterly different from each other in most ways as well.

 Lexa’s sure that their relationship is a rarity that doesn’t often occur amongst most people.

But Clarke wasn’t quiet, like Lexa, and that was the problem tonight. The only time Clarke is quiet while she’s still in the house is if she’s having a panic attack, crying, or… She’s brought somebody home with her for the night.

Lexa can always sense when she’s brought somebody home with her even though they have bedrooms on the opposite sides of the house for that particular reason. Lexa always knows, for some reason, when another person has been allowed into her sanctuary. Home was her safe place, her and Clarke’s haven. It didn’t feel quite like home when someone’s infiltrated it. Clarke didn’t do this often, but when she did, she never warned Lexa she would be. It usually infuriated Lexa, and she had every right to feel so. It was one of the many annoying things about Clarke Griffin that Lexa was surprised she’d allow herself to tolerate. She would never do so with anyone else, Clarke was special to Lexa and the blonde knew it.

Lexa doesn’t like strangers, especially when they are in her home. For the most part, neither did Clarke. Lexa, however, never ever brought people home so Clarke never said a thing about it. Lexa can’t say anything because it’s more Clarke’s house then her own, but she always feels uneasy about Clarke’s random hook-ups, especially since they’ve been occurring more and more lately. She’s especially bothered when she has to walk down the hall to the good bathroom because her own is acting up again and Clarke Griffin’s door is wide open and there are… _noises_.

She can always hear it when she’s that close. The breathy moans if it’s a guy, more of a screeching if it’s a girl. But she never hears a thing from Clarke. She knows Clarke is just quiet when it comes to things like that, even if she shouldn’t know something intimate like that about her roommate, she still knows it.

It was almost ironic that Clarke was quiet during activities where she’s supposed to be loud and loud during activities where she’s supposed to be quiet; like reading, or listening to Lexa press on the keys of their ivory piano in the corner of the living room that faces away from the wall to ceiling windows on one side of the living room wall.

No, it wasn’t _almost_ ironic, it _is_ ironic.

Like Clarke had to rebel in every last thing she did, breaking every rule she could. The only ones she followed were the rules her and Lexa set for the house. And even then, Lexa wondered if that would still be the case if she asked Clarke to not bring anyone home anymore, or to at least shut her bedroom door.

_When did she start opening it?_

That must have become a recent habit. It was much easier to ignore when the door was closed, muffling sounds that made Lexa’s stomach twist and her teeth grind so that her jaw worked from side to side in just the way it does when she’s angry.

The screechers always make Lexa cringe. She isn’t sure how Clarke manages to be attracted, or even get off to them. Lexa hates talkers (or screechers, in most cases more often than not,) when she’s in bed. It’s probably why she never brings anyone home. She’s too damn picky. But she has someone to help her out if she needs it… well, she _had_ someone. That was enough for Lexa at the time. She’s never been one to sleep around, nor is she one to want commitment, so it was an okay set-up she had with this other girl, at least until she got engaged last week.

Lexa only cared a little, she hadn’t even known the girl was seeing someone else, not that her and Lexa had been exclusive. Lexa doesn’t really handle commitments very well, unless it was Clarke, for some reason committing to Clarke’s needs has never made the girl run like every other commitment has in her life. But the blow still hurts when someone gives up on you, and that’s what Costia did.

Lexa wasn’t usually the creepy roommate who stood beside her roommate’s door while she fucked someone else, but something about this night made her not want to pass the gap toward the bathroom at the other end of the hall. It was probably the fact that the door was completely wide open, and Lexa knew she’d look, she’d look straight in and she doesn’t want to see it, she really doesn’t. That being said, she did really need the sink in the other bathroom. She still didn’t move though, just listened to the mumbles and moans until whoever she was doing was finally done, and ended with a satisfied cry that made Lexa scrunch up her nose in disgust. Her jaw was starting to hurt, she doesn’t know how long it’s been working from side to side now.

From then on it was about ten seconds of labored breathing from one person while Clarke remained completely silent, just as she always was in bed. The other girl – yes, it was a girl this time, Lexa was sure of that, but not a screecher, so at least that was a plus, – started speaking, her voice heavy, her throat sounded dry, saying something about returning the favor. She’s all giggly and happy and Lexa doesn’t understand how this girl got into Clarke Griffin’s bed, because the last thing Clarke Griffin likes, going off the amount of people she already doesn’t like, is a giggly person.

Lexa doesn’t like her.

She has to do it, she needs the sink, and her favorite toothpaste is in there as well, along with Clarke’s face wash which is mostly Lexa’s now because Clarke doesn’t even use it. In fact, Lexa’s sure Clarke only restocked it because of her. Clarke did a lot of things like that; despite saying she actually despised Lexa (which she only ever said jokingly, because Clarke Griffin could never really hate her). She always liked her a little bit more than she liked anyone else. Clarke just wasn’t good at showing feelings or even handling her own emotions and Lexa wouldn’t ever ask her to figure it out because Lexa was the same way. It’s just another reason this arrangement worked out so well.

Until nights like these, where there was some stranger in Clarke’s bed, making sounds that twisted Lexa’s stomach because of course Clarke was good at whatever the hell she always did to them.

Of course she was good at it.

_Clarke Griffin is talented at everything._

Lexa decided, as her jaw throbbed, that she was going to pass the open bedroom door toward the small nook of a bathroom at the end of the hall. She even began to move, bending her knee forward to slide her sock covered feet along the wooden paneling of the hallway passed Clarke’s room, but Clarke said something that made Lexa stop. She said something Lexa was sure Clarke was incapable of ever saying.

“I told you, I’m in love, I don’t want too.” Clarke’s voice was soft, too quiet for Clarke on average, and suddenly Lexa isn’t sure if it’s the activity, or the fact that Clarke is showing emotion, which she’s never very good at. But she can hear the lilt in Clarke’s voice; it’s unmistakable when she’s drunk. _“I’m in love”_ seems to repeat in Lexa’s head a billion times before she can even think of anything else. This time her stomach twists and Lexa thinks she might be sick. She isn’t sure why the words and the way Clarke’s voice had utter them makes her feel that way, but she is frozen in her place now.

Lexa almost wants to walk in and tell the girl it’s time to go but how would that look? Usually Lexa wouldn’t care but she didn’t like getting into Clarke’s business anyway, even if she’s slightly offended that a random floozy gets to learn that Clarke Griffin has managed to fall in love with someone before her own roommate gets to learn this, before her somewhat friend, before the person she’s already admitted to trusting more than anyone else, before the person she needs more than anyone else. Or maybe Lexa had just convinced herself that, that was the way Clarke had looked at her, maybe that was all in Lexa’s head and it wasn’t true at all. It wouldn’t be the first time that Lexa would try and convince herself that she couldn’t possibly be liked by anyone.

Even if Lexa is slightly offended and very protective of Clarke Griffin, she knows this conversation is none of her business; she should just walk passed the door toward the bathroom, she should, but the throbbing in her jaw tells her she probably won’t attempt to move for at least another couple minutes.

“Why are you here with me if you didn’t want someone to take your mind off her?”

Lexa has no idea why she’s intrigued, why she even wants to know who the hell they’re talking about. She wants Clarke to tell her this, she tries to ignore the feeling in her stomach that tells her she’s upset about Clarke not doing so, but she knows it’s _ridiculous_.

Clarke is not good with feelings, or talking about them. The only reason this girl probably knows is because Clarke is drunk, and Clarke is always honest when she’s drunk; though, Clarke is often openly honest with Lexa when she’s sober a lot more than the blonde would ever admit.

Something about Clarke Griffin _in love_ makes Lexa nervous and she doesn’t just think it’s because Clarke decided to tell a one night stand over her, first.

“I just want to fuck someone; I don’t want to be fucked.” Clarke cussing is something that always manages to make Lexa shiver, though in this situation, it also manages to make Lexa grind her teeth at the same time, because she isn’t quite sure why she’s getting so upset, and the only thing that upsets Lexa more than getting upset, is not knowing why she’s getting upset.

_Clarke shouldn’t say fuck like that._

Clarke shouldn’t say _fuck_ at all, at least not to anyone else but her.

“Clarke, you’re not in love.” The girl says, sounding like they are familiar, like Clarke didn’t just pick her up at some casting party so she could bang her and then forget her name in the morning. Her voice is too confident, like she can read Clarke’s mind, but Lexa knows nobody can read Clarke’s mind. It makes her ball up her fists, still unaware of why she’s this upset, but just accepting it at this point because there isn’t anything she can do about it. She should be walking to her bathroom. She should be utterly uninterested in this conversation but she still can’t manage to move.

“I’m in love, I told you what I wanted before we left.” Clarke mumbles her tone drolly and bored the way it normally is when it comes to speaking to other people. Lexa in the next moment realizes the urge to get to the bathroom becomes suddenly more important than anything else at this point. She decides she doesn’t want to hear this anymore, if Clarke Griffin wants to _fuck_ random girls with unprofessed love under her belt and not tell her basically best friend about it first, than Clarke Griffin can do that. It’s none of her business. Maybe she’s feeling a bit bitter about it, and maybe Clarke will hear about it or at least get the backlash of it eventually, but right now, Lexa just wants her favorite toothpaste.

She forces herself to move, she can’t remember the last time her jaw hurt this much.

“Fucking another girl at ten o’clock at night with your bedroom door open isn’t exactly the best way to say I love you, Clarke.”

Lexa stops her mind from working a route to the bathroom in the cold hallway to process what the girl had said and it makes Lexa’s stomach sink. Sink in a way she never thought she’d experience again since the first time she made love to another girl. Like a shock, a pleasant one, but all at the same time it’s overwhelming and too scary to wrap her little head around. She barely knows what it means, but it doesn’t stop her brain from overworking, the way it normally does in everyday life. Her jaw stops working for only a moment as she parts her lips to take in a quiet and deep breath.

She shakes her head after a moment to rid the thoughts overworking and circling through her brain, even if that doesn’t _really_ work.

How _ridiculous_ of her to react like this. Clarke Griffin is in love with someone, but it _isn’t_ her. That’s not what that sentence means, that’s not what it means at all. How ridiculous of her.

She can feel that flightiness taking over her chest, the same one she gets whenever someone wants more from her than she can give, but she refuses to acknowledge it because Clarke Griffin is not _in love_ with her. And even if she was, Lexa could never leave, _can_ never leave her. Clarke needs her. It’s ridiculous that her brain had even gone down this road of thought, _ridiculous_.

But it isn’t that ridiculous because Lexa always overthinks things and Clarke really doesn’t spend time with anyone else but her, so it makes somewhat of sense, but _no_.

Lexa can’t accept it.

She’s being ridiculous.

 _Ridiculous_.

“Maybe not, but you look like her.” Clarke’s voice is raspy, and there’s rustling again, and the girl giggles like she’s being flipped over. It makes Lexa cringe, her path to the bathroom appearing in her mind again because she wants to escape this, why can’t she escape this?

Her jaw starts working again even though it’s sore and throbbing, she still can’t stop it. She shouldn’t be hearing this conversation, she just wants the bathroom, _god damn it_ , she shouldn’t be hearing any of this. She doesn’t need to know that Clarke is in love if Clarke doesn’t want to tell her, she doesn’t even know what she’d do with information like that, its completely useless to her. She doesn’t even like that word… _Love_ … even if she gets a warm feeling in her stomach when Clarke’s name is attached to it.

“I’m surprised Clarke Griffin. I don’t remember you being so inconsiderate of other people’s feelings.” The girl bites, but it doesn’t sound like she’s about to get up and leave. It sounds like she’s baiting, challenging Clarke to something and Lexa really doesn’t want to know what it is. So she creeps to the other side of the hallway wall – the side away from the door – as quietly as she can because she has to pass them, she has to, to get to the bathroom. They probably won’t even notice, too enthralled in the conversation that Lexa shouldn’t be this interested in.

The girl giggles again and Lexa tries to keep her breathing under control as her jaw works and her palms ball together multiple times. “I told you what I wanted.” Clarke says in the darkness, in that same voice she had used before, the quiet one, the almost lost one, the one she gets when her emotions are betraying her.

It almost makes Lexa sad, but Clarke is too busy on top of another girl for Lexa to want to feel like she should help her right now. “I can pretend you are her.” Clarke mumbles and the girl only laughs at her, and it makes Lexa sad because how could the girl laugh at her right now!? This is why Clarke never talks about her feelings, because people don’t take her seriously. But Lexa does, so why is this girl getting information she doesn’t deserve?

Why hasn’t Clarke told Lexa?

_Why does Clarke have to fuck girls with her door open?_

“You are hopeless Clarke Griffin,” There is rustling again, and Lexa knows the girl has flipped them over again and it makes her sick to picture what it looks like.

The seconds it takes the girl to talk again feel extremely and almost painfully long, and there is absolutely no noise in between besides her breathing.

Then she says, “You live with her,” and the sinking feeling comes back so strong that Lexa actually leans against the wall like it will swallow her up and save her from the storm that is suddenly taking place inside of her.

It’s immediate and intense and Lexa shakes because she doesn’t know what to think or what to do with it. Clarke Griffin _can’t_ be in love with her, she just _can’t_. “She obviously doesn’t deserve you but you live with her Clarke, you could have her. You should go to her now because you can’t spend your nights bringing home girls that look like her and leaving the door open so she’ll hear in hopes that maybe she’ll spit it out first. If you’re really in love,” Lexa only feels colder than she should against the wall as her heart pounds in her chest, even as it sinks with her stomach.

“I won’t say anything at all.” Clarke interrupts, finishing the sentence for her and her voice no longer sounds lost. It’s drolly but confident and found and it makes the air in the room seem harder for Lexa to breath into her lungs.

“You look like her.” Clarke says again, that lilt she gets when she is very drunk is stronger than ever when she says it and before the other girl can reply there is a loud gasp and Lexa can’t hear another round.

She can’t hear Clarke fuck this girl anymore; she can’t hear Clarke ever say she’s in love with someone, _with her_ , ever again.

She can’t.

Lexa doesn’t get to use the good bathroom that night. She retreats very quickly to her bed, tells herself she’ll figure something out in the morning and tries to drown out the sinking feeling in her chest, and the pounding of her heart in her ears.

Clarke Griffin isn’t in love with her… She _refuses_ to believe it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to warn you before you read the rest of this story that I write in a completely fiction format, meaning with my own character names and physical feature descriptions. I've just crossed this over into a fan fiction, changing names and details to fit. If there are some mistakes with that I apologize. But as these characters are mostly my own, their personalities may not always resonate with that of the ones from the show. So some parts may appear completely out of character. Don't read this if that is something that can really frustrate you.


	2. Too Warm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy this one. :)

Lexa was up early, too early for her to like anything, she was very much a night person, and despised the thought of the person that made “day” the social norm. She needed coffee, and she needed it now before she would speak to anyone or even remotely acknowledge her responsibilities for the day.

Clarke usually got up with Lexa when she had early mornings for something you could almost call moral support, even though they bickered through the entire morning because unlike Lexa, Clarke was very much a morning person, and _“wouldn’t tolerate”_ Lexa’s bad attitudes.

Clarke made the coffee and Lexa made the breakfast, but not this morning. This morning, Lexa was up alone, and if it weren’t morning, Lexa would very much care and maybe even go through lengths to throw Clarke’s hook-up out the front door, without her clothes. But she was too tired to put in the effort and yet, maybe Clarke was already gone. Maybe she had already left for something her famous life requires her to do. It was unlikely, Lexa knew Clarke’s schedule and she pondered over the thoughts of her still in her bed, maybe with the _door open_ , banging someone else Lexa doesn’t want to know about.

She wishes she’d just close the door, at least. It’s just common courtesy.

She makes the coffee because it’s obvious Clarke isn’t going to do it, even though she feels a brief loss as she brews it because Clarke was always better at making it than she was, like she had some kind of magic over the machine that Lexa could never quite figure out how to work.

Lexa knows she only has an hour until she has to leave for her first class. This class, unlike most classes which would only physically drain her, was actually killing her; it was sucking the life right out of her. She had it every other day and it felt like a punishment, for who knows what. Lexa usually has trouble sleeping at night, so she only gets about three hours on these days. Not even coffee can make up for that. Clarke isn’t helping with her random one sided endeavors and her insistence on keeping her damned bedroom door _wide_ open.

Lexa even goes as far to wonder why she even has a door if she’s never going to use it again.

After about two cups she’d normally jump in the shower, but with Clarke’s door still open in the hallway and an intruder still most likely in their house, Lexa is left to sit there and contemplate her options. She can’t use her bathroom, because the waters messed up, as it always has been since pretty much the day she moved in, but the good bathroom is blocked even though it really isn’t that hard to get to, save the embarrassment if Clarke is actually awake and on top of another brunette with green eyes, male or female.

At this point, Lexa doesn’t bother keeping up. She just wishes she didn’t have to see them all the time.

Lexa needs a shower and she doesn’t have enough time to contemplate it, so as grumpy as she can, she places her coffee cup down and manages to get her favorite towel out of the closet that’s located near the entrance of the kitchen that is also shared with the very nicely sized living room. She slides her sock cladded feet along the wooden paneling passed Clarke’s open doorway and she even manages to not look in this time, though she can see enough from her peripheral vision.

Clarke is awake, and she might be doing exactly what Lexa is getting very highly sick of. She’s at least sitting up and she doesn’t have a shirt on, and Lexa might go crazy if she has to continue to tolerate this. She’s even thinking she might have to talk to Clarke about it. But she immediately dismisses the idea because to talk to Clarke about this would bring up something else Lexa wants to avoid for the rest of her existence and she already spends too much time thinking about it as is.

She actually grumbles as she passes the doorway, which is not something Lexa is used to herself doing. She doesn’t _grumble_. She doesn’t make any sounds to show her discomfort in situations that are possibly dangerous for her emotions or can make her appear weak in another’s eyes. But she can’t help it this morning because Clarke is _ridiculous_. As much as she doesn’t want to talk about feelings and emotions at this point, Lexa is tired of the door _always_ being open. She never cared before if Clarke was fucking everyone on the block, as long as the god damn door was shut so Lexa didn’t have to actually acknowledge that it was happening.

_Why is it always open?_

She enters the bathroom quickly, aware that she can hear Clarke thudding around her room for whatever reason. She tries to ignore it but Clarke sounds angry and Lexa doesn’t really like it when Clarke shouts, so she shudders as she opens her favorite toothpaste and grabs her toothbrush. There’s some stomping, that girl’s voice, the one that Lexa doesn’t like to remember talking from a few weeks ago, is here this time again. She’s the only one that gets seconds, probably because Clarke isn’t making her reciprocate anything, and she’s a bitch and Clarke likes bitches. Lexa doesn’t seem to like anyone that Clarke invites into her bed, not that you could ever really blame the girl. Just because the individual might resemble Lexa doesn’t mean they act like her. Lexa immediately shakes that thought off because it’s entirely too close to something she’s trying to forget.

Lexa frowns at herself and rolls her eyes. She brushes the feeling away and listens as footsteps stomp down the hallway toward the bathroom and of course she knows who it is, because Clarke won’t ask permission to come in when she’s grumpy in the morning, she just does what she wants, says what she wants and Lexa has to deal with it. It’s the most Clarke says to her on most days in general so Lexa is usually okay with it. In fact, Lexa kind of enjoys bickering with Clarke, and if Clarke’s in the bathroom she’s away from her floozy, so she doesn’t mind which direction Clarke is stomping towards.

The door handle turns and Lexa side steps so she isn’t hit by the door when Clarke swings it open, which is exactly what she does. She even slams it shut, because she always has to be as loud as ever, and turns on Lexa like she was being the obnoxious one. Lexa looks at her through the mirror, but Clarke’s eyes are trained on Lexa, and she’s obviously got something to say, whether it be important or not, so eventually Lexa breaks, toothbrush still sliding along her teeth and she meets the blonde’s eye line.

Her eyes are puffy and red, like she hasn’t slept in days or maybe she’s been crying and it makes Lexa’s heart ache slightly but she’d never admit that out loud. Her lips are puffy, no doubt Lexa knows why, and her hairs messy and she looks awful but Lexa thinks she looks pretty even when she looks awful. She’s not sure if that would make sense to anyone else but it makes sense to her.

Lexa is sure that Clarke is the only girl that can look so pretty in such an awful state.

“You didn’t brew the coffee right,” Clarke starts, and Lexa rolls her eyes because it’s going to be one of _those_ days.

She spits the toothpaste in her mouth out and cleans her mouth of it before she straightens up and meets Clarke’s eyes again. They’re so damn blue today, like she wants to cry. Lexa wouldn’t admit that it makes her heart clench again, tightly in her chest. The need to take care of Clarke is almost full force, despite her own grumpiness.

“You wouldn’t even know that, you haven’t been in there yet.” Lexa protests casually. Her voice is raspy, as it normally is in the morning but Lexa is sure it might have more to do with the fact that Clarke is dressed in so little – only a flimsy white shirt that barely covers her bottom – and looks so pretty. Her voice always got like that when Clarke looked at her like this, when they were so close together while Clarke wore so little and looked so good and smelled of sex and something that can only be described as Clarke. Her voice always betrayed her, every time. So did her eyes and the warm feeling in her stomach that ached and that she avoided acknowledging.

“I need a shower too, you know,” She snaps at her. Though her bite is weak and Lexa wonders what’s gotten into her this morning to make her interactions so weak. She doesn’t directly ask because she knows there’s no point because the blonde won’t tell her and that’s just not what Lexa does when it comes to making Clarke feel better. Clarke doesn’t like to talk about it, and Lexa doesn’t like to make her talk about it.

“I have school,” Lexa replies nonchalantly, her eyes finally leaving Clarke’s to turn toward the shower. She pulls the curtain back and turns the knob until it sprays on. She knows it won’t take long to heat up but she still closes the curtain and looks back at Clarke as if she’s got time when she really, really doesn’t. If she doesn’t hurry she’ll be late and then she won’t be able to attend her first class at all, and she’s already missed it three times, she really doesn’t want to make it four.

“I know you do.” Clarke says weakly, like whatever fight she wanted to have she is suddenly giving up on.

Lexa doesn’t mind when Clarke bickers at her, she bickers back. It’s what they do. Its normal, but Lexa really doesn’t like it when Clarke gets quiet, because Clarke _isn’t_ quiet. It always means that something is wrong, and Lexa really doesn’t like it when Clarke’s upset. Lexa has never been this protective of somebody in her entire life, so any worries about her making her first class on time suddenly seem insignificant while Clarke is looking at her like that.

Lexa frowns and pulls on Clarke’s wrist so they’re closer together. Their noses were only an inch from bumping against each other. Such close proximity happened often, but it never failed to make Lexa’s breath catch in her throat. “You’re supposed to say, _“You have your own shower.”_ So I can reply with _“It’s broken cause you won’t fix it dumbass,”_ and then you’ll tell me to shove it and you get in the shower anyway.” Lexa tries and it makes Clarke smile a little, if you can count her lips only barely turning up as a smile.

Lexa’s hands shakily rid Clarke of her flimsy white shirt, which confirms that, that really was all she was wearing and she doesn’t let her eyes linger because that’s not what they do when they do this. She slides her hands along smooth skin and ignores the shiver that runs through Clarke in response to her touch. This isn’t intimate, sometimes they shower together and that’s just the way it is, but it’s not an intimate act.

At least that’s what Lexa tells herself.

Clarke washes her hair and she helps Clarke wash her back and it’s really just the both of them, mechanically helping each other shower with no other actual movement toward anything else. Its small things like this that makes Lexa and Clarke so close. They’re both lonely, emotionally, and they both don’t know how to handle it so they always do stuff like this because it helps, they help each other like this.

It’s easy and routine and when the shower is done they don’t touch again, not because things are weird, but because that need is filled, the need to be close, to be near someone, to be cared for and to care for someone else. It always leaves Lexa feeling too warm though, needing other things she’ll never let herself acknowledge. She doesn’t think about Clarke like that, she just doesn’t. It’s not what they do.

At least, that’s what Lexa tells herself.

It makes Clarke feel better because she talks, she talks as loud as she always does and as much as she always does about plenty of things Lexa would find completely uninteresting if it were someone else talking to her about it. By the time they are done and Lexa is ready for the day she is ten minutes late and knows her first class’s doors will be shut and locked so she offers to cook Clarke and her “ _thing_ ” breakfast, who is sitting at the counter when they had finally exited the bathroom.

If the look-alike finds it weird that they both come out clean at the same time, she says nothing of it. It always makes Lexa wonder how much the girl knows about Clarke’s feelings, but then the brunette brushes it off because she won’t think about that.

She’s ignoring that.

Lexa doesn’t like her, but it isn’t a lie that the girl looks a lot like her. That might be the part she hates the most, because she’s so giggly and loud, unpleasantly loud, not like Clarke, and it makes Lexa cringe the entire time she scrambles eggs and fries bacon. Her jaw is already working up a throb for the day. The girl talks even more than Clarke does, but unlike Clarke, nobody wants to actually listen to her say things, at least Lexa doesn’t. Lexa just wants her to leave. So she continues talking and talking until Clarke finally dismisses her after breakfast, and the house can suddenly function the way it normally does. Even if Lexa is still too warm, and still had a throbbing jaw to remind her that someone else was here, and Clarke still looks at her like that, the way she has been for days.

Clarke fills the emptiness quiet with clatter of her fork scrapping against an empty dish, stomping as she bustles around the kitchen to wash up, heavy sighs when the water doesn’t heat up fast enough. It’s comforting to have her being loud the way that Lexa is used too, even if she was never one to much appreciate noise. They don’t talk, but nothing is quiet, and the morning goes by much easier without the look-alike to interrupt the peace.

When Lexa goes to leave for her second class of the day, Clarke stops her by the door to tell her “I’m sorry for making you miss your first class,” Her hand is warm as it wrapped around Lexa’s wrist as she says it, and it provides comfort in a way that Lexa will never ever let herself admit to, nor will she acknowledge.

That seems to happen a lot with Clarke now, or has it always been that way, Lexa is unsure, and again, unwilling to ponder it. She feels even warmer than she does on most days after their shower together and she thinks that’s ridiculous because usually she would have gained some control by now, and she wonders if Clarke can see it in her cheeks because those pretty blue eyes follow the features of her bone structure before Lexa manages to reply.

Her breathe is heavy and she’s sure Clarke’s noticed the frantic smack of her pulse against her skin at the place she is holding Lexa’s wrist but Lexa doesn’t ponder if Clarke is trying to acknowledge it. Instead she just replies with, “No you’re not.” And tacks on a signature teasing smile to plaster on her lips. The one only reserved for Clarke. The blonde returns her own smirk and everything is as it’s always been when Clarke lets go of her wrist.

Except that it’s not because Lexa _knows_.

She knows Clarke’s in love with her and it feels like a giant secret she’s keeping and the longer she goes on knowing the larger it seems to grow in her head. She can’t ignore it, no matter how much she’s trying too. It keeps her up when it shouldn’t; it makes her forget things when she can’t let it. It makes writing impossible, it makes everything she’s ever felt impossible because _love_ is not a feeling she stays for. _Love_ is a feeling she runs from, _love_ is a feeling that’s dangerous and manipulative and unsafe. _Love_ is selfish.

So she convinces herself to ignore it for at least another day, even if that’s impossible, she will continue to ignore it.

At least, that’s what she tells herself.

 

 

***

 

Lexa’s favorite color is teal, unlike grey, like Clarke’s. It’s not boring, but it’s not “obnoxious” as she usually puts it to Clarke. It’s just nice to look at. So when Clarke painted the second bedroom in the house teal, Clarke knew who she wanted to live in it. She didn’t paint it that color for herself, she’d never think of teal for anything unless it involved Lexa, and that’s the first time Clarke noticed _it_.

The second time Clarke noticed _it_ was two weeks after Lexa had already moved in to her freshly painted teal bedroom. The water in her bathroom wasn’t working right and Lexa had spent every morning taking up the hot water in Clarke’s bathroom until the blonde was fed up with cold showers. Of course she was annoyed because Clarke didn’t like having to share, but something about sharing with Lexa made her not care as much as she would have if it was anyone else, just as she shared her other bedroom even though she really didn’t need a roommate, just as she shares her coffee and breakfast and favorite movies with the same girl, who really doesn’t appreciate much of the same trivial things Clarke does.

But she likes Lexa, and that’s the end of that. That’s how Clarke would usually think of it anyways.

Clarke has a select few people she’s like this with, sharing her things are easy and there’s no anxiety and she’s okay if someone falls asleep on her shoulder or borrows her favorite movie but Lexa was still different from them. Lexa drove her crazy because she was too quiet and too sassy when she wanted to be and she sleeps like she’s actually dead and sometimes it scared Clarke to the point that she’d actually shake the girl awake or have to check her pulse point just to make sure she wasn’t actually dead.

Clarke just has no idea how she can like someone so much but really hate them at the same time, even though she doesn’t really hate her because she never really could feel that way, not about Lexa.

Lexa was… _is_ special.

It was the shower that made her notice _it_ for a second time. Because Clarke needed one really bad and Lexa had just gone in there and she always took up the hot water, _always_ , and Clarke couldn’t be late that day. She couldn’t miss this audition and couldn’t go looking worn and smelling less of shampoo than she had the day before. So she did something she never thought she’d do with anyone, because honestly, the only people that do this are lifelong friends with unrequited feelings, not a pair of emotionally unstable girls who went to high school together and occasionally danced at a party but never once had a conversation that could be resembled as normal or that could be perceived as them liking each other in anyway.

Platonic friends don’t shower together.

She walked straight into the bathroom, unlocked she might add, and got in the shower with Lexa because she must have been feeling brave that day, and who the hell actually knows what she was truly thinking. When it came to Lexa she often made a lot of irrational decisions that were normally against her better judgment. But Lexa didn’t even seem to mind after Clarke explained that she just needed the hot water and shampoo, and the shower ended up being slow. So slow that it should have led to something much more, because every time Clarke’s fingers brushed the back of Lexa’s neck she shivered, and every time Lexa’s hands smoothed down Clarke’s back, spreading the soap, maybe even sometimes with no soap, Clarke shuddered. It should have been more than a slow shower but it wasn’t. It was the sweetest thing that Clarke had ever experienced.  Afterwards she didn’t want to think of a time that she wasn’t washing Lexa’s hair for her.

 The second time Clarke Griffin had noticed _it_ was the moment she didn’t call the plumber to fix her roommates bathroom because she’d much rather shower with her in her own.

The third time Clarke noticed _it_ was when Clarke couldn’t breathe or focus on anything because they were at a carnival with Clarke’s costars – she wouldn’t exactly call them friends, she barely called Lexa a friend and she showered regularly with her – and there were just too many people, way too many people for Clarke. She was uncomfortable and just wanted to go home and it seemed that every face she looked into just made things worse.

It wasn’t until Lexa noticed, because of course Lexa noticed, of course sweet, delicate, beautiful, selfless Lexa would notice that she was having a hard time and she pulled Clarke to a bench and threw her arms around her and she had said “what’s the name of that clown that tried to take your cotton candy when you were a kid?” and it was a good distraction because Clarke loved that memory, and the counting never worked like they said it should, so she fell into it. She buried herself into the crook of Lexa’s neck and could have fallen asleep to her voice, telling Clarke one of her favorite stories from when she was a kid.

She spent the night huddled into Lexa’s side, her face buried in her neck whenever they’d sit down and their fingers tangled together because it’s the only thing that made Clarke feel safe. She spent the night listening to Lexa’s voice as she spoke about very simple things and even laughed at Lexa’s bad puns that were never funny. It was the only thing that made her breathing seem stable instead of frantic. Because of Lexa she wouldn’t shake because of the people, but because of the cold instead and Clarke had never had someone, since her mother, comfort her like that before.

Clarke couldn’t stop breathing her in because she smelled like some kind of pretty flower she didn’t know the name of and lotion that she was sure was expensive. And her skin was soft and warm and Clarke just wanted to be closer to her, to touch her and caress the smooth plans of her cheeks, brush her nose along the column of her neck, trace the lines on her palms. Clarke didn’t want to let go because she didn’t feel safe unless Lexa was holding her that night, and even when they got home, Clarke fell asleep with her limbs tangled with Lexa’s and her face buried in her neck because there was no other place she wanted to be. Not that she’d ever admit that out loud.

The third time she noticed _it_ was when Clarke slept longer and better than she ever had in her life because Lexa kept her close and safe when nothing else in the world could ever make her feel that way.

Clarke can’t stop noticing _it_ in every little thing that she does now because Lexa is in every little movement, every little thought, every little action that Clarke makes. She’s everywhere. Clarke cannot escape her, and she doesn’t want to. That’s probably the worst part about it. Clarke doesn’t want to escape her. She wants Lexa in every moment that’s significant. Whenever something ridiculous happens, or something interesting occurs, Lexa is the first person Clarke wants to tell. It doesn’t matter how many girls Clarke could be with, how many guys she could choose from. She doesn’t want anyone that isn’t Lexa.

Perhaps, instead of not wanting to escape her, that’s the absolute worst part.

Clarke could never tell her. She _knows_ that. She could never utter a single syllable about how she truly feels for the brunette because the girl would run. She’d run as fast as she can because those words are something she never wants to hear from anyone.

Clarke says them in other ways, ways that Lexa appreciates, like making the coffee in the morning, because Lexa insists she’s the best at it, or restocking some small insignificant supply that Lexa might like too much, or in the way Clarke has to stop everything she’s doing when Lexa sits down at the piano because god damn she plays so beautifully, and brunette always throws herself into it as well, she gets lost in the image, unable to tame her own voice as she tells Lexa such things.

She knows Lexa cares about her too, Lexa says so in her own way, maybe not quite the same way as Clarke because there’s no way that Lexa feels this deeply about the blonde who was sure nobody in the world could ever actually love her for just herself, but she still says them. She says it every morning she makes Clarke’s breakfast, because normally Clarke doesn’t actually like it when people cook for her, or whenever she peels Clarke’s clothes off of her to sleep in the same bed or take the same shower, because Clarke doesn’t like to be touched by people. She says it whenever she demands to be home at least by 7:00 P.M. on Sundays so she can watch Clarke’s TV show; even though she’ll say it’s not just for the blonde.

Clarke knows she’s important to Lexa, she _knows_. But as time passes it just doesn’t feel like enough, and maybe she’s mad about it and maybe that’s why she keeps her door open when she brings someone home, but that’s not really effective because it’s not like Lexa would hear anything, she can’t in that teal colored room designed perfectly for her. Clarke isn’t even sure she wants Lexa to hear. Lexa already knows how quiet Clarke is when it comes to activities like that. She already knows that Clarke doesn’t like it when Lexa gets into her business involving any kind of romantic relationship, she already _knows_ Clarke.

It won’t bother her, but Clarke still leaves the door open like it will anyway.

Clarke can’t even get off with the people that she brings home, nothing happens. It’s nice until it’s not and then nothing happens. So she’s just stopped trying all together. None of them are Lexa, or could even compare to Lexa, but if she gets drunk enough, she can pretend, just for a night.

Clarke can’t even understand what she was doing before she knew Lexa and she doesn’t want to ever know a time where she doesn’t know Lexa again, but a part of her is aching and it’s too much to keep too herself. She’s terrified. She’s terrified of the word as much as the feeling; it’s not something she handles well. Clarke doesn’t talk about how she feels, she doesn’t even like acknowledging it, but how she feels about Lexa she knows she can’t ignore anymore. She can’t ignore it because it undeniable wherever she is. Lexa is her first and last thought of every day; she doesn’t even make a decision without thinking about what Lexa might think about it first. It’s actually been pretty hindering and very frustrating, but it also _hurts_. It really fucking hurts because Lexa doesn’t _love_ and Clarke _needs_ her.

Clarke spends too many of her days drinking and getting high because it’s the only substitute she has for feeling this way. She can’t admit anything to Lexa because it’ll ruin their steady lifestyle, and she can’t even imagine her saying _that_ word out loud, saying it just fully right in front of her because that makes _her_ want to run, let alone how it would make Lexa feel.

But it’s killing her. It really truly is.

She doesn’t know if she can keep this charade up, even if it means she could possibly lose Lexa, and that thought just makes her want to be swallowed hole.

So after her responsibilities are finished for the day, and she’s done some shoots for her show and an interview for an evening radio station, she drives to the next bearable person she knows. She can’t manage to work up the energy to fuck someone that looks like Lexa tonight, but she can’t manage to muster up the thought of being in her bed alone, by herself, so she’s putting it off. Even if it is 10:30 at night and the girl, whose door she’s slamming on right now, is probably getting ready for bed.

“Clarke what are you doing here,” says the brown eyed brunette when she finally swings the door open, a toothbrush hanging out of her mouth so the words come out in a jumble. She hadn’t taken her prosthetic leg off yet, but she had little shorts on and a hoodie that looked too large for her, it was probably her boyfriend’s; of course he was probably there, Clarke didn’t think about him even though she should have.

She just _needs_ someone, and the person she needs the most she can’t go to with this.

“Shut up and let me in.” Clarke says directly, as abrasive and abrupt as she’s always been. Raven just rolls her chocolate brown orbs and moves aside for the blonde who immediately enters without hesitation. Her blue eyes take in the newly decorated living room before they exam the taller boy leaning against the doorframe of the bedroom. He has less on then his girlfriend, and his hair’s a mess, and Clarke really doesn’t care what she’s interrupted. She’s got a problem, and she _needs_ someone.

“Oh look. Raven’s ex-girlfriend, I do love these unexpected drop-ins.” The taller boy announces enthusiastically, a smirk along his lips that doesn’t touch his pretty eyes. His passive aggressive behavior would usually irk on Clarke’s nerves more often than not, but tonight it just doesn’t bother her that much.

She still won’t let a snappy reply get away from her though. “I have a name you incessant nub,” Clarke bites, her voice low and drolly and just what you’d expect from her at all times of the day.

Clarke wasn’t exactly the most warming of characters, but the people she was close to loved her, and she actually had quite the sense of humor when she wanted to show it off. In fact, Clarke was sure Raven was even thinking of getting the vodka out of the fridge because Clarke was a much better person to be around when she was drunk. Clarke knew she was a much better drunk.

“Bellamy, go to bed, give us a minute.” Raven encourages lightly, making Clarke scrunch her nose up at her softness. She doesn’t say anything though and just watches as the taller boy shrugs and turns around in the doorframe. Clarke still didn’t like him much, but the feeling was mutual between the pair so it wasn’t much of a problem.

“Okay, but don’t bring her with you.” Bellamy adds lightly, his upbeat humor actually manages to get on Clarke’s nerves to the point that she thinks she actually twitches. Despite her needs right now, Bellamy Blake is still as aggravating as ever.

“I’d rather eat nails, Blake.” Clarke snaps her jaw working back and forth for a moment as her hands clench. She doesn’t even care what he says on average, she’s just on the literal edge, figuring she’s going to fall off at some point and she isn’t even sure when.

She’ll probably die, longing for pretty green eyes and gentle soft hands.

Raven rolls her eyes, “Alright,” She tries walking toward the bedroom door and pulling it shut before she turns toward Clarke, but Bellamy just slams it almost in her face as she reaches it. The action is unappealing and it makes Clarke frown more. Raven spins around to notice the blonde’s slumped shoulders. “Do you always have to be so unpleasant to him?” The taller girl corks an eyebrow up at her blonde friend who has seemed to relax since his departure and just shrugs her shoulders.

She likes Bellamy less then she likes most people, it’s just how she feels about any of her friends relationships. She tolerates them for the sake of their happiness but she knows that person’s going to hurt them eventually and it makes her sick knowing she can’t do anything to protect them from it. Things are different with Raven’s relationships. Clarke’s already hurt her before; she doesn’t need anyone else doing it to her again.

“He gives me a headache,” Clarke mutters as she examines her nails, the bored look crosses her features again and Raven thinks all she’s missing with this look is the studded eyebrow and the ripped up gloves to match.

“You give me a headache and I’m still pleasant to you.” Raven tries to seem serious, but it’s kind of hard to with toothpaste puffing around the corner of her mouth. Clarke would probably laugh at her, if she was in her normal state of mind.

Raven walks toward the kitchen sink and washes the toothpaste from her mouth, placing the toothbrush next to the sink before she turns back around to examine the blonde who’s watching her with that dark average Clarke stare, it still intimidates her a little, though she’d never admit that to Clarke… even though Clarke already knows it.

“I don’t recall giving you a headache when I was between your legs.” Clarke replies wittily, her eyebrows shooting up in that same teasing motion that Clarke is so good at when she meets Raven’s brown eyed gaze and flushed cheeks.

If Clarke knew how to smile, Raven’s sure she’d see one appearing on her face. But she’s been convinced the girl is the spawn of the devil since she met her, no matter how much she loves her, and she really does love her.

“Clarke,” Raven adds warningly, whose own eyebrows are corking up as if to tell the blonde this isn’t something she wants to start right now. The blonde just shrugs at her and spins around to advance on her leather couch where she falls into a cushion rather dramatically and tangles her own fingers through her hair, resting her elbows on her knees as she cradles her head.

Clarke can feel Raven watching her, but her brain is still on one thing, so she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care what she’s interrupted, or if she’s upset the brown eyed girl, she just _needs_ to say it to someone that can understand, just once. “I’m in love.” It’s like a wave crashing down onto her as the words leave her mouth. It’s like a wave but the water doesn’t feel pleasant, just cold. “I’m in love.” She says again, a little louder, because last time felt like it came out far too quiet to even be heard. That, and she just needs to say it, she _needs_ to say it.

Raven is taking a seat beside her now, a hand along the blonde’s back. Clarke is sure the girl has no idea what to say, but Clarke doesn’t care. There isn’t anything anyone could say that could make this better; she just needs to admit it to someone that isn’t going to laugh at her. She needs to admit it to someone that isn’t a stranger, to someone she actually trusts.

She can’t admit it to Lexa, so that makes Raven the next best thing.

“With who?” Raven mutters softly, voice quiet. She sounds hurt, but Clarke kind of expected that. She wouldn’t have come to Raven with the information if she could have figured it out on her own, if she didn’t have this incessant need to say it out loud. But she has no one else, nowhere else to go if she can’t tell Lexa.

Even if Raven doesn’t have much of a reason to be hurt, because she’s moved on and she’s happy, Clarke still manages to cause the dark haired girl pain over feelings like this. They’re friends now but she’s still going to be hurt anyways, Clarke knows that. She squeezes her eyes shut because she knows she has to tell Raven who, otherwise what was the point in telling anyone at all? The only other person that knows is her substitute Lexa and that girl is really irritating. Clarke can’t trust her, she never could. The brat wouldn’t even know if Clarke hadn’t gotten so wasted that night.

She wouldn’t be surprised if the look-alike showed up to her house just to tell Lexa herself, which she’s threatened to do on days that she “ _wants_ ” Clarke but Clarke really doesn’t want her.

Clarke _never_ wants her… She wants Lexa.

Raven’s hand along her back is actually comforting, even though it’s not moving. Usually Clarke would hate the contact, but a part of her really needs it right now, maybe as badly as she needs to confess. She really needs all of this.

“Lexa,” Clarke says, but her throat is too tight. The name barely comes out, she can barely hear herself say it, among the heartbeat in her ears and the tightening of her chest, she can barely hear it at all. She’s almost sure Raven didn’t hear her, because the silence spans out for what feels like a century.

But Raven heard her. Her fingers tangle into the side of Clarke’s blonde hair and she pulls it back behind her ear. “I thought so,” Raven says softly, her voice still quiet. _Hurt_. Clarke wishes it didn’t hurt her to hear it, but there isn’t anything she can do about that. “Does she know?” Her fingers keep tangling in Clarke’s blonde hair as Clarke responds with a shake of her head and almost laughs with absolutely no humor in it.

“I can’t ever tell her.” Clarke says softly, her voice sounding lost and emotional and she hates it. Clarke really, really hates it when she sounds so weak. She shouldn’t feel this way. She shouldn’t feel anything at all. But she loves Lexa. She really, really loves her, and she can’t tell her, she can’t tell the only person she wants to tell the most because Clarke knows she’ll lose her if she does, and it hurts.

It _hurts_ so much.

“I know,” Raven says sincerely, her fingers stop moving in the girl’s hair and she makes her fingertips touch along the blonde’s jaw and she gently forces her head to turn to her. Their eyes meet and Raven gives her a soft smile that’s only reserved for Clarke. “You can’t but you have too.” She says softly, words that Clarke can’t bare to hear.

_She can’t._

“I can’t.” Clarke chokes out slightly, a noise leaving her throat that could almost be described as a sob but Clarke refuses to cry because she doesn’t. She doesn’t cry for anything. She won’t cry. She _won’t_. But Lexa makes her do things that she normally doesn’t do.

_Like fall in love._

“You have too, look at you.” Raven encourages. “It’s killing you.” She states the obvious, and the blonde laughs… well, a chuckle is more like it. She sniffs, because even though she’s fighting it, her vision has already blurred and her eyes burn with tears. But she won’t let any fall, _god damn it_ , she won’t.

“She’ll leave,” Clarke whispers wrapping her arms around herself like that’s supposed to shield her from the pain of that statement. It doesn’t do much good, and the leather jacket she’s wearing is actually far colder on the outside than it is on the inside, thanks to New York’s cold weather.

“But if you don’t tell her, you’ll leave.” Raven knows Clarke better than Clarke would care to admit. Her own blue eyes find brown again and she takes in a deep breath and holds it because she knows her friend is right. She has to tell Lexa; even if it’s the very last thing she’s ever wanted to do. She has to tell her. She’s going to lose her no matter what and that’s what’s killing her, but she couldn’t just leave Lexa. She couldn’t do that to her without giving her a reason. So she has to tell her.

“I suppose there’s no getting out of this.” Clarke says, releasing that deep breath she’s been holding in and falling back against the couch. She can feel the brunette’s forced smile, can feel the hurt that is there because it’s not her that Clarke had fallen in love with and on the average day, Clarke would feel bad, and Clarke would do whatever she could to make it up to her even though there isn’t much she can do. But Clarke _needs_ too much right now to be able to help her.

“You want to stay here tonight?” Raven tangles her fingers with Clarke’s and rubs the back of the blonde’s hand in what was supposed to be a comforting motion. It didn’t really comfort Clarke like it should. It just kind of made her miss Lexa.

“No, I have to go home.” Clarke grumbles and forces herself off the couch, detangling fingers and walking toward the door. Raven does follow her eventually and Clarke gives her a tight hug, something she rarely ever does, before she swings the door open to leave. “Think of me while you’re fucking your boyfriend,” Clarke teases as she jaunts down the front steps, smirking as she hears Raven scoff and slam the door shut.

She’ll never get tired of that though. No matter how much she _needs_.

 

 

***

 

Lexa’s fingers are brushing keys on the ivory piano in the living room when she hears the front door open. The lights are off, so the room is mostly dark excluding the light of the moon and street lamps that peek through the large windows on the wall. She wants to turn around and greet Clarke and tell her she’s late, but something about the way the blonde slams the door makes her not want to do those things.

There’s a lingering thought in the back of Lexa’s mind that she might have someone with her, some look-alike and Lexa can’t take another night of a look-alike and the door open. She won’t be able to bare another second of it. Her jaw works as her thoughts continue, so she doesn’t look up from the keys, though the song she’s playing picks up pace.

“Hey, you’re still up.” Clarke got unbelievably close to her very fast for having just entered the door, but Lexa maintains whatever cool that could have been broken by such a quick and close proximity.

She says it like a statement, not a question, because of course she knows that Lexa is still up. She doesn’t usually sleep until she knows Clarke is home safe, and even then, Lexa’s insomnia was literally her worst enemy.

Something about the air in the room feels tight and Lexa really doesn’t want to turn around while it’s there. She doesn’t even know how to describe it, like the room is hanging on its own thread and at any second it could snap and come crashing down completely around her. “I can’t sleep.” Lexa mumbles carefully, fingers pressing down on keys that fill the room with a sound far too pretty for the tightness that Lexa can’t describe in the air. It makes her hold her breath as Clarke takes the seat next to her and places her cold palm on her lower back. Lexa might as well be wearing no shirt, because that’s what it feels like when Clarke touches her and she can’t stop the shiver that runs directly through her due to the contact.

If Clarke notices, she says nothing about it. “Do you want me to make you tea?” Her voice is barely above a whisper, it sounds raw and full of emotion and it really isn’t something Lexa hears often, so it causes Lexa to finally look up from her piano keys for the first time since Clarke’s entered the room. Clarke sounds like she’s got something she needs to say and Lexa can’t help the fear that blooms in her chest at the very thought of all the things Clarke could say to her. Her stomach twists and breath catches but she says nothing because she’s ignoring _it_ , and she will continue to ignore _it_ as long as she can, even as Clarke looks down at her like she’s the most precious thing in the world. Lexa doesn’t remember Clarke looking at her like that before. It’s terrifying.

“No,” She says quietly, her green eyes finding those pretty blue ones that are looking at her in a way she can’t even begin to describe. Even if tea sounds good, it feels wrong to say yes right now, even if Clarke is so good at making it, just how Lexa likes.

Clarke’s look is sweet and sincere and a look that she never uses and then Lexa is scared because she thinks she might know what it means and she really doesn’t want to know what it means. She really doesn’t. “You are late,” Lexa says stiffly as Clarke’s fingers slide up her back following the lines of the tattoo she must have memorized by now. It makes Lexa nervous because Clarke’s eyes are following the path of her fingers and she’s not used to this. Clarke doesn’t look at her like that; she doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s feeling far too warm again; afraid of what she might do if she keeps looking at the blonde for too long.

“I went to Raven’s.” The blonde mumbles.

Lexa can’t describe the feeling that makes her stomach twist every time that name leaves the girl’s lips. It didn’t used to be there, it’s relatively recent, ever since she’s learned that they used to date. They didn’t just date, they were serious, and Clarke broke her heart, and it just makes Lexa’s stomach twist when she thinks about it because Clarke could be with her right now, that’s worse than a look-alike.

“Why,” Lexa feels the bite leave her before she can stop it, forcing her gaze back on the piano keys. She moves her fingers back over them and plays something more fitting to the air in the room. It’s nice and Clarke doesn’t say anything for a while, even as her own fingers brush back Lexa’s hair from her face. The action is too soft and too sweet and Lexa is afraid. She’s terrified.

“You like Raven,” Clarke says softly after what feels like forever. Usually Clarke would smirk at her and bite back and they’d go back and forth playfully and everything would be as it should be, but Clarke is not responding normally. Her eyes are dazed and soft and her touch is even sweeter than her looks and Lexa’s stomach is twisting and twisting and she isn’t sure what’s going to happen or what she even wants to happen.

She’s too warm, always too warm.

“Maybe, is that why you didn’t bring anyone home this time?” Lexa bites again, her voice lower than she’d like it to be. But the room is quiet outside of her piano keys and she doesn’t want to disturb it, whatever thread she’s on, she doesn’t want to break it. Her jaw works as she thinks of Clarke touching Raven in anyway that’s more than friendly. She doesn’t have a right to feel this way, if she’s going to ignore the fact that Clarke is… _but she still does._

She still feels this way.

“You don’t like it when I bring people home.” Clarke states as a fact, because of course she knows the answer to that. Lexa won’t answer though, she just keeps playing, feeling the thread in the room grow thinner and she wonders what will make it snap, what that even means. She’s terrified, actually terrified.

Maybe she wants it to snap.

“Why do you keep the door open?” Lexa musters out even though she had told herself all day not to ask.

Clarke’s fingers are cold. They’re very, very cold as they brush along the skin of her neck while she pushes her hair back again. Lexa isn’t sure if she is shivering because of how cold they are or if it’s because it’s Clarke touching her.

She can never keep up anymore.

“You don’t want to know the answer to that.” Clarke mumbles close to her ear. It sends a tingle through Lexa and she shuts her eyes a moment to gain some kind of control of herself. She stops mechanically playing and turns enough so that she’s looking at Clarke again. She’s looking at her like she’s so precious and Lexa’s heart is pounding and her stomach is clenching and she’s warm and she’s terrified. She’s so terrified of this.

“Clarke,” and whatever she’s about to say dies on her tongue because she isn’t sure what she was about to confess. She isn’t sure what words wanted to leave her, if the honest to god truth did, if she wanted to tell her something, if some kind of lie was going to come out, she has no idea. The thread in the room will snap if she finishes the sentence so she doesn’t. She stops and Clarke is looking and waiting for her to finish but Lexa just can’t. She can’t do it.

Even if she wants the thread to snap.

“Let’s go to bed.” Clarke eventually offers after the silence becomes too deafening, pulling herself from the bench and wrapping her hand around Lexa’s wrist to pull her up with her. They go toward Lexa’s room and Lexa doesn’t object as they move through the doorframe. Clarke leaves the door open to her room too.

Lexa doesn’t need to help Clarke out of her clothes, but she does it anyway. Pulling her leather jacket down her arms and undoing the button on her jeans until the blonde pulls the rest of it off herself. Lexa climbs into her covers and waits until the blonde has peeled her bra off and moved her way under the covers too before she can even start to get comfortable.

Clarke’s arms envelope Lexa immediately and she feels the tightness in her chest leave. She feels safe because that’s how she always feels when Clarke has her arms wrapped around her like this. The girl’s cold nose presses to her neck and Lexa feels herself shiver again as she tangles her own legs with Clarke’s.

She is terrified, but Clarke is home.

“You’re so cold,” she mumbles in the dark, and the last thing she hears is Clarke whispering against her skin words that she’ll pretend she didn’t hear when she wakes up in the morning.

_“I love you.”_


	3. Like Coming Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like this chapter. :)

Lexa woke up too early for her liking, especially for her day off of school. Her phone wouldn’t shut up, and she was starting to contemplate how much she would miss it if she just chucked it out of the window. It isn’t until Clarke starts grumbling against her, breath puffing out onto her neck, clearly distressed by the noise that she even decides to open her eyes. Clarke’s palm is flat against her belly, and she is suddenly all too aware of that too warm feeling again.

She rolls Clarke off of her with a soft “Lexa,” coming from the blonde out of complaint, but the girl soon gives up and rolls into a small bunch of pillows on the other side of the bed that the girls had both neglected over the night. Lexa sleeps on the right side of her bed, of any bed really, it was a thing that she had to consistently do. She couldn’t sleep in the middle, on the left, at the end. It had to be the right side. The blonde is burying her nose into one fluffy pillow and releasing a loud heavy sigh that makes Lexa smile slightly through the morning light. The brunette can’t help but find her rather endearing in the morning, and even though she shouldn’t, because chasing the feeling in the pit of her stomach was a bad idea, she leaned across the space now between them and planted a gentle kiss on the girl’s cheek.

Clarke huffed at the contact. “Shut that stupid phone up, it’s been going off for twenty minutes.” The blonde grunts, eyes still closed tightly while she wraps herself around one of Lexa’s long pillows  as if to substitute for the brunette’s body, though she imagines Clarke doesn’t find the same comfort in it because she can see the girl pout against the cushion.

“Don’t be dramatic,” Lexa replies simply, before reaching toward her night stand and pulling her phone toward her. She glanced at the screen and had to let her eyes adjust to its brightness before noticing the contact, which only made her frown.

She sighed and answered the call, pressing the device to her ear. “What do you want?” She greets rather bitterly. It’s six thirty in the morning, so she wasn’t really in a pleasant place.

A deep chuckle was the man on the other side’s immediate response. “Way to greet your childhood best friend Lex, good morning to you too.” He laughs easily, bringing lightness to the conversation that only he’s good at, despite how loud he, and wherever the hell he is at, was.

“Lincoln, it’s six in the morning, what the hell do you want?” Clarke unburies herself from the pillows she’s cushioned in, eyes glittering in the morning sunlight as it peaks in through the windows. Lexa thinks that she looks awfully beautiful for someone who has just woken up.

The blonde scoots across the space again until she can wrap herself yet again around Lexa, and sighs contentedly when her head rests against Lexa’s chest. Lexa’s heart swells, and her free hand immediately finds Clarke’s knotted hair, fingers lightly brushing through the strands to be careful not to pull on any tangles. Clarke just snuggles into her more, looking sweet and softer than ever.

“Relax Lexie Lex; I called to ask a favor of your rich and famous friend that you replaced me with.” He chuckles into the receiver and Lexa rolls green orbs. She unconsciously feels her fingers fiddle with Clarke’s hair continuously, the only proof the girl on top of her is even still awake is the gentle sighs she makes every time Lexa’s fingertips drag across her scalp.

“It’s too early for favors.” She snaps impolitely, watching as she twirls a strand of blonde hair around her finger.

“Please Lex; Costia needs to know the hotspots for tonight. Clarke promised to let everyone know.” He informs the brunette, his tone is deep and easy though Lexa doesn’t find much comfort in it and pouts down at the blonde tangles of hair wrapped around her fingers.

“Clarke,” She says gently, pulling the phone away from her ear. “Clarke,” She mumbles again, quietly as the girl on top of her stirs slightly, snuggling closer to Lexa, though the brunette was sure she couldn’t get much closer. She looked so cute all wrapped up in Lexa’s large purple blanket, chin hidden by it as the blonde breathed against her.

“No,” Clarke protested, voice coming out raspy and harsh that Lexa shivered to the sound of it. She always did love Clarke’s morning voice.

She’s far too soft on the girl, but it’s hard not to be when she’s being so sweet. “Sweetie, Lincolns on the phone for you.” She whispers into the quiet air, only interrupted briefly by Clarke’s loud sighs and the gruffly noises coming from the cellphone in her hand.

Clarke picks up her head and meets Lexa’s eyes for a second, and she looks to be contemplating something, a slight blush brushing across her cheeks that Lexa is just adding up to being early morning glow. Then abruptly as ever, the blonde sits up, swings a leg over Lexa to straddle her and grabs the phone from her palm, placing it over her ear.

“Talk.” She snaps unpleasantly, looking down at Lexa below her like she had never seen something more pleasant.

The action sends a chill down Lexa’s spine and she finds herself balling her hands up into fists so they don’t act on their own accords and grab the blonde girl’s hips or something. Clarke sat so patiently above her, her weight weighing on her lap but not unpleasantly, and she seemed to be contemplating more things in her head before she let one of her hands brush across Lexa’s forehead to push back brown strands of hair, tangled and curly along the pillow.

The touch made Lexa suck in a quiet breath.

The next few moments were kind of still like that, Clarke’s fingers brushing down her face, touching, like she had never seen Lexa before in her life. Each touch had its own chill too it and Lexa felt like she might as well be hearing Clarke’s unprofessed love right now. The thought scared her too much to continue to think about it, so she tried hard to focus instead on Clarke’s rambling off a bunch of club names. But then suddenly Clarke is leaning down on top of her, and the weight is too nice as their bodies press together and Lexa can barely breathe as the blonde places the phone next to her ear.

But Lexa can’t really hear what Lincoln is saying to her so instead she just says “bye,” and watches as Clarke hangs up her phone. Their eyes meet and lock into place, and Lexa hears rather than sees Clarke toss her phone onto the nightstand again. The blonde’s face is very close to hers, blonde hair cascading around the both of them and Lexa thinks she can feel the too warm feeling starting to spread all over her body instead of just in the lower part of her belly.

She feels at Clarke’s mercy as the blonde’s fingertips trail down her neck and skit across her collarbone, making breathing a much harder task to accomplish.

She hates feeling the too warm feeling but is addicted to Clarke’s touch as it skates across her skin lightly, creating a new shiver in Lexa’s body wherever it travels too. Clarke could do whatever she wants to Lexa right now, and there wouldn’t be anything the brunette could do, mind completely jumbled and fogged up with Clarke.

It’s a terrifying thought.

“Pancakes?” Clarke tires to whisper, but Clarke was never good at whispering, and instead it comes out in a low husky tone that makes Lexa’s eyelids flutter.

She spends a good thirty seconds trying to figure out what the hell Clarke means, keeping her palms balled into fists on either side of herself to try and prevent herself from making an action she might regret. No, there’s no might about it, Lexa knows she’d regret it. It would feel good, until it wouldn’t, and then she’d have ruined something far more beautiful than any fleeting thoughts of kissing her best friend in her own bed, rough and hard could ever be.

The thought makes her swallow hard as she tries to formulate a response.

“I’ll make them if you make the bacon.” Clarke grins at her brightly and Lexa feels a sense of familiarity with the grin on her lips, the one she’s used to receiving and it makes breathing a lot easier.

“Are we going to the party?” Lexa asks instead of answering. Her eyes following the planes of Clarke’s face before trying to stay locked on her eyes. The girl on top of her smiles slightly, all prettiness and easy-going and it really is an endearing sight to behold, and Lexa would be admiring it, if the girl wasn’t still on top of her, making her think thoughts she fights very hard to bury in the deepest parts of her brain.

“Only if you want too, babe.” She leans forward and presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth, gentle and sweet. Regardless, it makes Lexa gasp slightly, as a tingle shoots through the spot and through her whole body. She wishes she hadn’t made the noise, but she still did, and as she was preparing for the consequences of it, Clarke rolled off of her and out of the bed, stretching with her hands above her head so the shirt she was wearing rode up past the spot where it covered half of her bottom and flashed the skin of her belly.

Lexa bit down the urge to watch her and instead got out of bed herself. Throwing some clothes on and walking briskly out of the room before Clarke, toward the bathroom with the favorite toothpaste in it.

 

 

***

 

 

“You invited your freaky roommate right? I love how wild she gets when she’s wasted.” Octavia releases a loud laugh and Clarke doesn’t even know why the girl starts laughing but she does know that she hates it when Octavia calls Lexa that.

“She’s not freaky, and you stay away from those hips.” Clarke bites, shoving the stronger girl’s shoulder, making her release a deeper, throatier laugh that almost has Clarke cracking her own smile. “I know she’s grind happy when she’s had too much alcohol but if you haven’t noticed that’s usually only with me, unless you invite that _Coffee_ girl.” Clarke thinks that’s her name, she can’t really remember it, and she doesn’t care too. She doesn’t like her and that’s the end of it.

“ _Costia_ , her name is _Costia_.” Raven adds much to Clarke’s dismay.

Raven’s leaning back in the chair she is sitting in so she can pull her prosthetic leg to rest on the vacant chair across from Clarke. “Is she not coming, I know she’s engaged but the girl loves too party.” Raven’s eyebrows are knitted together like she actually cares or should be concerned when she really barely knows the girl herself. They all only know her through Lexa and maybe a little bit through their friend Anya, but other than that, the girl was pretty much a stranger. One that got to be in Lexa’s bed when Lexa needed something more intimate then sharing Clarke’s shower and that was just at thought Clarke didn’t really enjoy having.

She’s surprised Raven’s even considering this party, since she’s been so against them since she’s started dating the oldest Blake, which even Octavia isn’t too happy about.

Clarke doesn’t really want to party herself, but her friends usually force her to go because she gets all the information on the hotspots. She normally lets Lexa know before anyone else because that girl likes to party far more than she’ll ever admit.

Well, she likes getting drunk at least, that’s about as close as it gets Clarke supposes. Lexa giggles a lot more when she’s drunk, and she talks a lot more as well. Clarke probably wouldn’t even know that Lexa exists if it wasn’t for those stupid high school parties they both always went to when they were younger, always managing to take up the middle of the dance floor together, even when they had barely spoken two words to each other.

Clarke liked those memories.

“If she shows up she shows up,” Clarke scoffs finally, pulling her coffee to her lips so that the liquid burns down her throat in a sort of satisfyingly painful type of way. Clarke really hopes she won’t show up because it’ll throw Lexa off, and the brunette has been avoiding the woman ever since she surprised her with an engagement. She didn’t think it was because Lexa had strong feelings for the woman, but more because Lexa felt as if some small amount of trust that had been put between them had suddenly broken. Clarke could understand that because it makes sense to her too.

“Is she bringing her sexy fiancée too?” Octavia chimes in again, eyebrows wiggling. Clarke did not understand why she tolerated this girl, or why she even liked her. Perhaps it was childhood attachment, almost a requirement to stay friends due to a long line of familiarity between their families? Even if that is the case, Clarke can admit that she was far more bearable than her brother, who could never seem to figure out when to shut his mouth.

“Lincoln?” Clarke asks, raising an eyebrow with her question. Octavia just nods enthusiastically and Clarke shrugs because it’s all she can do. “I don’t really know. He called to ask me for the club name but he said it was for Costia though I think he texted Lexa to confirm he was going but I’m not sure.” Clarke’s eyes cast down to her phone as one of her look-alike hook-ups texts looking for her.

She ignores it.

“Poor Lexa, she was like, utterly smitten with that girl and now she’s marrying Lexa’s best friend? That’s gotta feel shitty.” Octavia speaks blindly, reaching in the middle of the table to grab a few fries that had almost been completely forgotten by the three of them. Clarke lets blue orbs follow the way Octavia chews the salty potatoes and she finds herself scrunching her own features together as if being crushed by Octavia’s teeth herself.

“Lexa’s fine, she wasn’t in love with the girl. She was just someone she’d hook-up with every once in a while. You know she’s not really the commitment type. It’s just weird for her, is all.” Clarke isn’t sure why her heart sinks when she says it. She’s known this fact about Lexa hating commitment since they first started dancing together on random sweaty dance floors with terrible music and way too much alcohol. She doesn’t want to blame it on her feelings for her, but that’s probably the case. Clarke wasn’t much of the commitment type either, she’s made exceptions, but she could surely understand Lexa. It was amazing how much Clarke’s heart still hoped when it really shouldn’t have much to expect anymore. Ever since she told Raven she’s just gotten worse, she didn’t even think that was possible.

She’s the literal definition of heart eyes and Clarke is absolutely sure Lexa has noticed.

“Everyone’s the commitment type Clarke. She just says that because she doesn’t want to look weak.” Octavia informs the blonde, like she’s known Lexa longer or something, like she could possibly know her better than Clarke knows her. It makes Clarke scoff, crossing her arms along her torso. “You used to say the same thing before you dated Raven for like two years? Right? It’s a lie to protect your heart, but it really doesn’t work.” Octavia continues, and the frown that greets Clarke’s lips is enough to let the girl know she’s winning in however way you can win a basic conversation such as this.

“I know Lexa, I’d know if she was in love with _that_ girl.” She grumbles out finally, a small pout beginning to show on her lips. This only makes the stronger girl next to her toss her head back with more laughter. Clarke wondered how the girl could laugh so much and why Clarke didn’t actually cringe when she did so. It was amazing what a little fondness of one person did for Clarke.

Raven watched Clarke carefully because she knew. She knew and Clarke couldn’t take that knowledge away from her now. “Does she know about you?” Raven asks, raising her eyebrows up and down at Clarke like that’s supposed to prove some kind of point. It just serves to irritate the blonde who grumbles a little bit more under her breathe while her gaze falls on her shoes. Clarke still can’t imagine herself saying it in a situation that isn’t full of darkness and littered with almost sleep between the two of them.

“What does that mean?” Octavia chimes in completely clueless in her seat, reaching for more fries that Clarke figures are much too salty. She really didn’t want Octavia to know, especially if the stronger girl was going to be getting drunk around Lexa. That girl couldn’t keep a secret if her entire family’s lives depended on it.

“If she doesn’t know how you feel Clarke, I doubt you know how she feels.” Raven tacks on with a shrug. Clarke just glares at her because _what the hell?_ Friends are supposed to make each other feel better, not worse. They’re supposed to encourage each other even if it’s irrational. Maybe Raven’s a little hurt but it’s been three years since they dated, she’s moved on.

Clarke can feel herself getting angry but she tries to beat it down to keep the gathering civil and light.

“That’s completely different.” Clarke manages after a beat, but a part of Clarke can already feel the wheels in her head turning.

_Is it really?_

Is it really different?

Lexa would never admit she’s in love with someone. She hates the word and the emotion required to even consider it as a feeling. It makes her run. But if she was in love with Coffee… or _Costia_ , whatever her name is, there would be signs. Clarke knows there would be signs because Clarke has so many with how she feels about Lexa that she’s surprised the girl hasn’t just figured it out herself by now.

Lexa said she was a little sad about being surprised with the news, but that was the last thing she said on the subject, she doesn’t even bring it up now. Clarke can feel the cogs ramming each other in her head until they produce a headache that she knows is going to last for the rest of the day. It makes her run her fingers through her hair the way she does when she’s nervous.

“It’s not different. I can see the wheels turning in your head. Clarke, have you done what we discussed yet?” Raven cocks a pretty eyebrow upward again and Clarke watches it, the shape it makes when it’s waiting for an answer.

She used to think that was sexy, she wonders when the exact moment was that she stopped actually finding Raven attractive in the sense that she stopped finding the small things like that sexy. It’s not because Raven’s appearance has changed, but because Clarke’s view on her has changed. It almost confuses the blonde. Those thoughts are a welcome distraction from what Raven had just asked her.

But Clarke can’t put it off. She looks down a moment before looking back up at Raven who’s still patiently waiting on an answer. “I told her but,” Clarke grabs her coffee cup from the table and grips it firmly between her palms so she can feel the warmth radiate onto her hands. It’s comforting, even if it’s too warm and burns her just slightly. “I don’t think she heard me.” Clarke almost whispers, the stronger girl beside her looks highly confused but she isn’t asking any questions since she’s used to being left out of most of Clarke and Raven’s hidden conversations.

She waits, as if something will help her catch on at some point. Clarke doesn’t really want to help her figure it out. She really hopes Octavia stays as clueless as she normally is and completely misses everything that is said at this little round table in the small insignificant café they’re occupying.

“Clarke, you have to sit her down and tell her.” Raven runs her fingers through her long brown locks, brushing them back like she’s the one in the unrequited love situation. Clarke doesn’t think much further on that because in a way, Raven kind of is in that situation, even if she’s moved on, love doesn’t disappear. It was because of Raven’s feelings that they even broke up. So perhaps, Raven knows exactly what Clarke is going through.

 “I _can’t_.” Clarke feels like she enunciates the word until the “T” clicks against her tongue in an almost unacceptably painful way. She keeps repeating the words in her head and she’s sure she’ll never be able to break the small thread of “I can’t” until the moment she dies. She can’t imagine it, she can’t for one second imagine looking into Lexa’s pretty green eyes and actually telling her that she’s in love with her.

But she knows she has too.

“Clarke look at me,” Raven demands, reaching across the table and prying one of Clarke’s palms from her scalding hot coffee cup. Raven grips onto it like her life depends on it. Clarke almost feels bad even though she isn’t completely sure what she would be feeling bad for. When blue eyes look up into brown, it makes Clarke want to cry, and Clarke Griffin doesn’t cry. “You have to tell her.” She says seriously, her hold on Clarke’s palm grows tighter for a second, a small supportive squeeze, before Raven lets it go all together, sliding her hand back across the table and passed her own coffee cup into her lap.

“I know,” Clarke sighs softly and looks down at her lap, squeeze her scalding hot coffee cup again until she can see a little of the contents come up through the mouth hole. She watches it swirl around her lid, staining itself the same way Lexa has stained herself into Clarke’s heart.

“Holy shit, is Griffin in love?” Octavia says loudly, slamming her palms down on the small table. She makes it shake so much Clarke is almost afraid it’s going to collapse under Octavia’s intense hit. “You’re in fucking love with Lexa?” Octavia starts laughing so loud that it garners the attention of a few bystanders, but Clarke doesn’t care if they look. She’s too busy glaring at her overly strong friend before she decided this conversation is no longer worth her time and she brings her coffee to her mouth to take a large gulp that burns her throat as it runs down her esophagus.

“I have to go, thanks for the coffee.” Clarke mumbles as she pulls herself from the chair she was occupying. She picks up her bag and saunters away smirking slightly as Raven punches Octavia a little harder than Octavia had hit the table, scolding her in her very Raven like motherly tone.

She’s aware that the brown eyed girl watches her leave but she can’t bring herself to smile at her reassuringly. Her mind finds its way back to Lexa and the words she mutters in the dark. She’s sure she’ll probably never be able to tell Lexa. She can’t imagine doing so, not right now. She just wants a little longer with her before she decides to run away from her, before Clarke tells her and loses her forever.

 

 

***

 

The loud music was always Lexa’s least favorite part, at least when she first enters a party. She doesn’t like the way it makes her feet vibrate and her head pound. It’s loud, too loud, not pleasantly loud like Clarke, whose arm she grips as they filter their way through strangers, many already drunk and reeking of bad decisions.

Lexa thinks she’d much rather be home, or going out to dinner with their friends – mostly Clarke’s friends – than here. She’ll think that way until she finds the drinks and gets enough into her veins that it doesn’t bother her anymore and she can almost feel normal.

She looks at Clarke by her side and the blonde seems distracted, Lexa would ask, she would, if she wasn’t terrified too ask Clarke questions anymore. She feels guilty all the time, like she’s the one harboring feelings and not talking to her best friend about them. In a way, perhaps it is that way on her side as well, even though a word like _love_ is not something she plans to ever associate herself with, no matter how pretty the person is that comes with that atrocity of a word.

_But Clarke is much more than pretty._

They seem to make their way through the crowd rather fast, because before Lexa knows it she can see all of Clarke’s friends and even her friend Anya, who gives her a sense of comfort. Anya didn’t party much anymore, so it was nice to see her here. “Thank god you brought Lexa,” Anya snaps up from the stool she had been half sitting on, when Clarke and Lexa finally find the group; they’re huddled around the make-shift bar.

The group of them are chatting, half of them already at least buzzed. Clarke and Lexa are late, but of course they are, they always are when it comes to partying. They take their time getting ready; they have dinner before coming to them. They spend time together before they have to spend most of the night apart, at least until Lexa is very drunk and doesn’t want to dance with anyone else.

“Of course she did,” Lexa answers before Clarke can. She detaches herself from the blonde and returns the embrace the taller, almost prettier than her girl gives her. The hug is too tight and doesn’t feel like home, but Lexa lets it happen because she knows it comforts Anya, who really, really doesn’t like these kinds of things. That’s usually why she hugs anyone actually; it’s very rarely for her benefit, unless it’s Clarke she’s embracing.

That’s normally for the both of their benefits.

“You look normal,” Octavia shouts to Lexa as Anya pulls back from her, her eyes squinting at the other girl. Lexa’s always been sure that Octavia doesn’t really like her, she isn’t completely sure why, but she just lets the dwelling normal people would do go because she doesn’t actually really care.

There’s not a lot she can do about other people’s feelings. She does prefer to stay away from both of the Blake’s as much as she can however. Octavia wobbles on her feet and it’s the first indication that she’s had a little bit more than everyone else, possibly having gotten here just as the party was originally starting. Clarke doesn’t question it, as the rest of them don’t.

Octavia loved these things; she was usually the first one drunk. But Raven does the Raven-ly thing to do and helps the girl balance. “Where’s the dark make-up?” Octavia interrogates, getting too close to Lexa for the brunette’s comfort. Lexa takes a step back because she still doesn’t do well with that kind of proximity with people that don’t have permission to be that close to her.

Clarke’s palm finds Lexa’s wrist and she immediately feels a sense of comfort that she knows she wouldn’t be able to receive from anyone else. Today however, that feeling makes her want to drink. “That phase ended in 12th grade, remember?” Lexa cocks one of her perfect little eyebrows up and takes the drink that Anya slides into her hand willingly. She drinks it too fast, her head spins as she downs the liquid until the cup is empty and the contents burns its way down her throat and into her stomach, and Anya laughs at her because she has to immediately get her a new one. Lexa likes the way the alcohol immediately feels warm in her belly, she feels herself starting to relax without Clarke’s help and it brings a calm smile to her lips where there would normally be a frown.

“Try not to get too smashed, remember you got that test at 6:30.” Clarke reminds Lexa, which was really only the brunette’s request that she do so, so Lexa didn’t mind much about being reminded. Lexa nods and offers Clarke the smile she has reserved only for her, and she knows it warms the girl before her because the smile is returned to her with those same eyes that speak far more than words.

It makes Lexa want to drink more and she downs another cup before she can help it.

“What are you, her mother?” Come on Lexa,” Anya bites, grabbing Lexa by the elbow and ripping her from Clarke, tossing her a glare as they move somewhere Clarke can’t follow with her gaze through the crowd. Anya didn’t like Clarke much, but Lexa never wanted to ask her why. A lot of people that actually knew Clarke didn’t really like her; in fact, Lexa knew the blonde liked it that way. The thought of Lexa being the only exception to how Clarke feels about people getting close to her makes her want to drink even more.

After a beat of Lexa being slammed into bodies of strangers she really wishes Anya hadn’t dragged her from her safe place, but she doesn’t protest and lets Anya pull her toward where Lincoln is playing Ping-Pong against Luna, whose of course winning because Lincoln fucking sucks at Ping-Pong.

She knew this would happen. She knew Anya would rip her from Clarke, and Clarke knew it too. They always prepared for this. But Lexa still misses the comfort she feels when Clarke is beside her. Her eyes are searching for another drink before she can even register that Anya is speaking in her ear. “Costia is here, but I promise, I’ll protect you.” Anya says low in the girl’s ear who just shrugs off the gesture.

She didn’t care if Costia was here, she figured she would be if Lincoln was, and it was a party so of course she would be. Things were only a little weird between them, Lexa didn’t even cry about it. Everyone seems to think she likes Costia more than she actually does.

Except Clarke, Clarke always knows.

“Its fine, I’m fine, I promise.” Lexa assures as she places a pat against her friend’s arm with the palm of her hand.

In the seconds that Anya would take to respond Luna tosses her Ping-Pong paddle into the air in victory, with a war cry of passion. Lexa hadn’t even heard the shouting around them because she wasn’t sure which they were shouting about; the loud music or Luna’s victory. She didn’t really care if she thought about it. She just wanted some more alcohol so the headache that had started in her temple would go away.

“Drink up bitch!” Luna shouts pointing at the taller buffer guy who only smiles at her dazzlingly and shrugs his shoulders, as if he takes defeat that easy. Lincoln will be all over a re-match before the night is done, but probably for a game he knows he can win. Luna however, is still undefeated in most party games so Lexa’s sure Lincoln’s plan will backfire on him. He downs one of the shots handed to him before even noticing that Anya and Lexa had finally approached them, when he does his eyes light up.

“Lexie Lex, you got to help me drink these. I’ll die if you don’t.” He encourages loudly, shouting over the music.

Lexa feels herself cringe at the nickname, but she doesn’t protest she just lets Lincoln use it as he always has. Anya pushes her into the small opening as if deciding for the young brunette and because Lexa is really craving more drinks she only smirks and then shrugs, taking one glass and downing its contents quickly.

She can’t help but squint her eyelids together slightly as the alcohol shoots down her throat and into her body, burning and feeling better than Lexa thought it would. Luna is shaking her head in protest from her spot still behind the Ping-Pong table, but the giant smile on her face says something else.

“No, that’s not how this works.” The girl’s normally wild hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail but you could still see how incredibly curly it was on top of her head. Her eyes were soft and warm as they met Lexa’s gaze, and she offered a wink that told Lexa she really didn’t care about them bending the rules a little bit.

Lexa wouldn’t care herself if Luna had actually cared, but she did like Luna a lot, and a lot of people she was surrounded by liked Lexa, so she offered the girl a smile and her very own wink, one she’d never give if she hadn’t already downed enough alcohol to be making her head already feel so much lighter than it normally does in crowded situations such as this one.

So Lexa decided to drink. She drank as much as she wanted because that’s what she did at these things. She drank until the beat of the music was in sync with her heart and her head pounded with the beat of the drums. It was like she became in sync with every single person that was there the moment her head spun and the alcohol started to fog her thoughts and the little worries that clouded her day by day. She was free, just for a moment, feeling warm, a good kind of warm, and light.

She shouted jokes at her friends. The good ones that made them laugh so hard they’d belly over and they tossed their heads back as she told stories that no one else would be able to repeat with the same enthusiasm. She pulled a few of them on the dance floor with her eventually and she moved, she moved with them because she was good at it and she loved the way it felt when she had the proper amount of alcohol fogging her vision and un-censoring her thoughts. She drank whatever they handed her and she lost track of how many songs slide together, one after another, beat after beat.

She was free.

Her friends sputtered jokes around her as well and eventually Clarke’s group of friends had started mingling with hers until they took up most of the middle of the dance floor.

Lexa was too free to care that Octavia didn’t like her, or that Raven had been eyeing her in a way that told her she might be plotting her death. She still liked Raven, and she told her as much as the girls caught eyes. Raven was too much of a kind hearted person to keep glaring at her, so eventually when Lexa coaxed her into dancing with her, she gave in. It was easy.

Lexa _loved_ feeling like this, and she didn’t love many things.

She didn’t even find it as weird as she used too when she finally caught Costia all over her fiancée; though, Lincoln seemed a little less content with the action than he should be, his eyes wandering to other places, other girls.

On any other day, Lexa would have told him to get his head out of his ass, to stop being such a frat boy, but the fact of the matter was that he is a frat boy, and frat boys do what frat boys do. Anya is the one that pulls Costia off of Lincoln, she even winks at Lexa as she does so, like Lexa’s supposed to care what Costia does. She surprises herself when she thinks that she might actually care, at least a little bit. It makes her hunt down another drink before losing herself in a tempo too fast and too loud.

She felt good.

But as the hours slide together and the beats past the time she eventually felt a void that told her she was missing someone. She knew exactly who that was. She could feel the heat missing on her body, like she always had, like she always will during these nights, or any other night.

She’d never admit that to herself if she wasn’t as drunk as she is now, she knows it. Clarke’s touch feels distant as green dazed eyes manage to scour the room the best they can while she moves her hips to the rhythm of song after song. She’s ready to stop because the urge to find Clarke and dance the night away with her has become a priority. She needs to find her to feel right. The night would be incomplete otherwise. But then she feels her, cold hands capturing her hips and pulling her up against her. Soft lips on her ear, and its right as she mumbles something Lexa could care less about understanding.

She just _loves_ the way it feels to have her lips there.

The blonde sputters something along the lines of “did you miss me?” and it makes Lexa shudder and feel that thread again, the one that’s always there when they’re in the same room anymore.

The lilt in Clarke’s voice is unmistakable, obviously she’s as wasted as Lexa, but Lexa doesn’t care. She doesn’t need another drink now because Clarke becomes her alcohol. Her fingers tangle in the girl’s hair, it keeps her close as the song continues and she can feel everything like it’s a part of that thread, stringing out and stringing out until she turns around to find those pretty blue eyes that remind her of home and safe things.

They’re dark tonight, as they always are when they’ve had too much alcohol and they dance together, but Lexa isn’t even sure if Clarke is as drunk as she is. She just knows the girl is moving with her the way they are both so good at, and her face is so close. She smells like sunshine and peaches and Lexa _loves_ her.

Her breath comes out in puffs against her lips as they let the music roll them, even if Lexa can’t understand the words. Lexa fingers are already exploring, tangling around the girl’s body as she melts to her with every single soft touch. Everything is right and the thread is thinning. It feels so thin, usually Lexa would run, she’d run when it feels this thin but she can’t seem to do that tonight, to lost in the sway of Clarke’s hips against her own and the rhythm of their heartbeats syncing together like they’re one.

_It’s going to snap._

Lexa can feel it in her stomach as it twists while her eyes attach to the very soft looking lips in front of her, and she wonders what they taste like. She wonders if they’re sweet, or if they’re hard like the outside of Clarke’s personality.

She wonders what Clarke wants, if Clarke wonders the same things. She wonders if Clarke tastes like she smells, if what she is feeling can even be contained in something as small as her lips meeting Clarke’s on a dance floor for body’s that sway too much.

The thread feels thinner and thinner as the seconds pass. Lexa should let Clarke go, it’s too thin, Clarke is too close to her face, but Lexa can’t. She can’t let go.

_It’s going to snap._

It’s like she can feel Clarke’s heart beat against her own chest. It’s rapid and fast and moving with the rhythm of the song and their own hips as the crowd cheers and jumps and sweats against each other.  It’s intoxicating, Lexa thinks Clarke is intoxicating, her scent, _like sunshine and peaches_ she had thought again.

She pulls the girl closer, even though she’s sure she can’t when they are pressed so close together already. The crowd doesn’t seem to be around her, just the music, just Clarke, just her breath on her lips. Lexa feels like they are molding into one human, Clarke’s eyes dark and confused as ever. Lexa’s warm fingers brush against the blonde’s cheek and she feels her own heart melt and patter around in her chest as the girl sinks into her touch. It reminds Lexa of a boat that can’t stay afloat. It makes a simple act like breathing that much harder.

Her forehead presses to Lexa’s and the action feels so sweet. It feels too sweet for Clarke, but in a way it’s just right because Clarke has always been sweet with Lexa, but only with Lexa.

She wonders if the other look-alikes Clarke has brought home over the past few weeks are treated so sweetly, and the thought makes her slightly bitter. But Clarke’s cold hands are under her shirt and tracing the end of the tattoo on her back in a possessive fashion and Lexa forgets what she was even thinking about.

Clarke’s cold touch makes her shudder, it makes Lexa’s breath catch in her own throat as Clarke’s blue orbs disappear from view and Lexa can see only her eyelids. Then it’s her nose, brushing against Clarke’s nose and it feels right, and her stomach twists because its right, but Clarke doesn’t move anymore. She stops and Lexa knows why. Her own eyes fluttering shut as she moves forward.

_Snap._

Lexa can swear she hears it break as she presses forward and her mouth slants against the blonde’s. The room smells of sweat and alcohol but Lexa is consumed by Clarke, she tastes like peaches as well as smells like them and something else, something that Lexa couldn’t name if she tried. The entire crowd feels lost on her as she melts into the blondes mouth, its soft and slow and sweet and of course it is because that’s how Clarke is with her.

It’s right.

It feels right, like she was meant to be kissing Clarke Griffin all along.

Lexa fingers are in the blonde’s hair again, tangling with the strands that feel so soft against her finger tips as if to keep the other girl attached to her. She can feel the girl’s cold hands on her back, but they feel warm now. Suddenly, Lexa is too warm again as her stomach twists.

It doesn’t stay soft. It becomes hard, Clarke’s hands on her like she’s protecting her as her tongue swipes along Lexa bottom lip and eventually dips inside of her mouth and Lexa moans, she actually does that in the middle of a crowd and she doesn’t even care.

Clarke’s tongue touches hers and she knows that if she hadn’t already been gone before, she sure the hell is now. She isn’t sure what else she’s supposed to be doing, just that she wants to do this forever. She’s fighting her need for breathe just so she can keep her mouth melded to Clarke’s.

Their tongues slide together like they were made to do so, and Lexa can’t remember the last time that kissing someone had ever felt this good. It’s not like fireworks, or some cliché electric shock but it feels right, and warm. It starts a tingle from where their mouths are connected and it just runs through everything that Lexa is.

She is far too warm now.

Lexa’s chest is tight and full of an emotion she refuses to let herself acknowledge, but in this moment, with Clarke and the alcohol she can’t help that the feeling is all over her, consuming her. She can’t breathe, not even as Clarke pulls her mouth from her. Lexa even chases after her and they kiss more, Lexa’s tongue sliding into Clarke’s mouth almost immediately the moment they reconnect. She would have continued, would have kissed her for as long as the world was still turning, but Clarke pushed her back, gasping for breath herself. Her tongue was running along her lips, as if trying to see if she could still taste Lexa on her mouth even as she pulled away.

Clarke looked scared.

She looked so scared while her hand touched over her lips after a moment, her eyes examining Lexa’s, whose were half-lidded with her drunkenness. Then she looked guilty, like she couldn’t believe what she had done, and Lexa could feel her chest grow tight because Clarke thinks she’s done something wrong and she doesn’t want her to think that. But Lexa can’t say anything quick enough to get Clarke to stop from rushing away from her, pushing through sweaty bodies and disappearing while Lexa shouts after her, stumbling and falling into people until Raven is gripping her hand and keeping her upright.

“She needs a moment Lexa, let her go.” Raven says loudly next to her ear. “Come on, let’s sit down.” She’s dragging Lexa toward the stools in the back but she can’t keep her eyes off the path that Clarke had taken toward the door. She just wants to follow her, fix the thread that she snapped.

She didn’t mean too.

“I have to go,” Lexa mumbles against Raven who only shakes her head, brown eyes forcing their way into green ones. She’s giving Lexa a stern look that makes the young brunette sit down, a small pout to her lips that she wouldn’t be able to stop even if she tried.

“Give her some time Lexa, listen to me.” Those chocolate brown orbs find green again as Raven grabs the girl’s chin and turns her head so all Lexa can see is Raven’s face. She’s corking one of those sexy eyebrows up on her head and it makes Lexa pout more because _god damn it_ why was Raven allowed to control her and handle her like this?

Raven, who’s kissed Clarke before too.

Raven, who still loves Clarke.

Lexa goes to get up again, but Raven forces her back down and holds her gaze. “Take a moment Lexa, breath. You need a moment too.” She’s gripping Lexa’s upper arms and it takes the young brunette a couple of seconds to realize that she hasn’t been breathing, and how much she really needs too. She’s looking at chocolate brown orbs when she realizes that Raven isn’t holding her back but helping her, and it calms her down, at least a little bit.

Lexa’s heart is still pounding so loudly in her ears she can barely hear the music. Raven is muttering things to her but she kind of blanks them out as she searches the crowd again.

She already misses Clarke. Her thoughts start to go to all sorts of places, wondering if she’s okay or not. It makes Lexa antsy, makes her heart that’s still pounding so fiercely leap into her throat.

She _loves_ her.

She hates that she _loves_ her but she _loves_ her.

She hates that Clarke _loves_ her too.

She hates this.

She doesn’t realize she’s saying that out loud until she meets Raven’s soft gaze again that almost looks sympathetic. Then Raven is pulling Lexa against her and she actually finds comfort in the warm embrace and the slow soft beating of Raven’s heart as the girl tangles fingers through Lexa’s brown hair and pulls them back, while she mutters stuff like “I know,” and “I get it,” above her.

It makes Lexa squeeze her closer and squint her eyes shut as she remembers Clarke’s lips on her own. “I love her too.” Lexa grumbles into Raven who squeezes her and mutter more _I know’s_ and more _I’m here’s_ until she’s pulling back and grabbing the girl’s face.

“Let me take you home,” She mutters sweetly, and Lexa just nods at her, accepting the help that Raven offers as she peels her from the stool and drags her out of the party.

She gives some excuses to her friends as they pass but Lexa doesn’t hear it as she scavenges the room, wondering if Clarke had just escaped to get some air but didn’t really leave. She wonders if Clarke has gone home, or if she’s outside, or if she’s gone to some bar across the street to waste her sweetness on another look alike.

That makes Lexa angry, and she forces the thought out of her mind as it comes.

They drive home in silence while Lexa drifts in and out of sleep.

 

 

***

 

Clarke is not asleep when she hears the front door opening and Lexa’s light giggle as someone else mutters that she needs to drink some water before going to bed. Clarke doesn’t move from her bed because she doesn’t know what to do. Clarke hadn’t drunk that much and Lexa was smashed. If she remembers this she’s going to run and Clarke is going to lose her. How could she be so stupid as to kiss her on a dance floor? Even if it was the nicest thing Clarke had ever experienced, even if the taste of Lexa’s mouth on hers still lingered slightly and she was begging it to not go away. She shouldn’t have kissed her.

_That was so stupid._

It takes a few moments to realize its Raven that’s with Lexa and that makes her heart sink even more. Clarke wonders why she couldn’t have fallen in love with Raven the way that girl loved her. She wonders why the universe didn’t work that easy and she instead fell in love with someone that would take off faster than Clarke could blink if she ever told her.

Clarke almost releases a grumble as she thinks about how Lexa’s going to feel in the morning. The dazed look she’ll give Clarke, maybe even a glare, maybe she’ll yell at Clarke and get angry. Maybe she’ll pack up in the morning before Clarke even wakes up and leave, escape off to Anya’s house or something. Anya would probably even encourage her to do so; she never did like Clarke very much.

Clarke can feel her eyes burning at the thought of Lexa turning on her heels and leaving her life forever. Taking every trace that she was ever here with her besides the one that’s in Clarke’s heart, the one that will never, ever go away even if Clarke had tried to get rid of it. Lexa was too special, in every single way, to forget.

Clarke wishes more than ever that she could tell Lexa that now.

“Can you get to bed?” Raven’s voice is thick in the air and she can hear the sigh that leaves Lexa, like she’s troubled or unsure of the question Raven is asking her.

“Can you find Clarke for me?” Lexa’s voice comes roughly, making Clarke’s own heart thud against her ribcage in a rapid motion that she wishes would stop happening around the green eyed girl, or even when she just hears her.

She can feel the familiar burning in her eyes that lets her know she’s on the verge of releasing more emotion in this small confined space than she has in about five years. She can hear Raven replying with an “of course, go get some sleep okay. I’ll text you.” And then she hears the door to their house open and close and then it’s nothing but silent except for Lexa’s one last long sigh.

It’s so quiet that Clarke can hear when Lexa starts tripping over her own steps. She can picture her pulling her shoes off as she hears them thud against the floor. She can imagine the way Lexa’s hips sway to one side too much because she can’t see straight as she struggles to walk in the direction to her room.

It makes Clarke stand from her bed because she wants to help Lexa, even though she’s sure that seeing the girl now will destroy every last ounce of strength she has left. She moves toward her door but when she looks at the frame she abruptly stops because pretty green eyes are staring at her in her doorway, and it makes the thudding in Clarke’s chest grow hard and painful.

She looks so sad.

“There you are,” she slurs slightly, eyes still half-lidded even with the amount of emotion weighing them down. She’s leaning against the frame of the doorway for support, an obvious sign that she’s had way too much to drink, and it’s instinct in Clarke that shoots her forward to help her off the wall.

The girl’s fingertips wrap around both of Clarke’s wrists as the blonde steadies her in her place. “You left me.” The brunette pouts, pretty half lidded green eyes finding Clarke’s wide and watery blue ones.

She can feel every emotion that Lexa always makes her feel swallowing her hole and drowning her in a river of _love_. It’s like they’re in an undertow and Lexa is pulling her deeper and further under the water and it hurts.

_By god, how it hurts._

“I’m sorry,” Clarke whispers, voice cracking on the simple apology, even though she knows those two little words are not enough to make up for what she has done to their relationship in such a short span of time.

Lexa’s right palm leaves her wrist and soon her fingers are sliding across Clarke’s cheek and it’s that movement that lets the blonde know she hadn’t been doing so well at concealing her emotions even a little bit, because she could feel the wetness sliding down her face, and she could feel her right cheek lifted of their weight as Lexa’s slender fingers took them from her.

“You’re crying,” She informs quietly, voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes are curious and so very green and Clarke is lost in them even as the tears in her vision blur them in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” She says again, but more strongly this time. Because she is, she’s sorry for what she’s done. She’s sorry for kissing her in front of a thousand strangers while alcohol consumed her thoughts and actions. She’s sorry she fell in love with her when she knows how very much Lexa despises the very word. She’s sorry for every way that this could hurt Lexa, not just herself.

“S’okay,” Lexa whispers and immediately after the words leave Lexa’s pretty pink lips, she’s cupping Clarke’s face in her palms and brushing Clarke’s cheeks with her thumbs to wipe her tears away in a very gentle motion that Clarke thinks makes her cry more. “I make you cry?” Lexa slurs as she takes a step closer to Clarke, so the blonde can smell her in every breath she breathes in.

Clarke squeezes her eyes shut and tips her head forward until she can feel her temple rest against Lexa’s, and the feeling is comforting and sweet. She can feel Lexa’s fingertips on her face and it makes her shake and she wonders when the hell she allowed herself to appear so weak in front of the girl, when she didn’t mind showing such weakness in front of her. When did she give her so much power?

Did she even have a choice?

“I’m sorry,” Clarke repeats, but the words don’t leave her mouth audible and she hates herself for appearing so vulnerable, especially at the state that Lexa is in. She should be taking care of her, putting her to bed, coaxing her to sleep with the hum of her favorite song and a caress of her hair. Instead, she’s crying in the drunken girl’s arms.

_How pathetic._

“What are you sorry for?” Lexa’s voice sounds sturdier than it had before, but she still slurred the words close together. Her palms were shaking against Clarke’s face, she could feel the way her hands shuddered and the way her thumbs struggle to follow the same path they continued to repeat over and over again as more tears spilled from Clarke’s very blue eyes.

The blonde’s own hands were shaking against Lexa’s waist as she tightened her fingers along the loops of her jeans. She let her tightly shut eyes open until she fell into a sea of green sincere eyes and then she was tipping forward in a way she shouldn’t. She brushed her lips against Lexa’s and then said “this,” before pressing forward and capturing them with her own once again, falling off a thread that snaps each time they melt into each other.

Her fingers grow tighter when Lexa’s palms slide into her blonde tresses and pull her as close as she can get her, their bodies molding into each other like they had done at the party earlier.

Each gasp that came from the other girl’s mouth Clarke swallowed into her own. She wanted to swallow every emotion she owned and all of Lexa’s fears with it, and lose herself in the closeness of her fingertips and the hope that chapped plump lips brought her when they were melded to her own.

She could swim in the feeling that beat down in her chest, as the blood rushed to her ears and her pulse pounded with the movement of the pretty lips against her own until she felt her tongue again and she wasn’t as scared and afraid as she was only moments ago because at least here, in this moment, before Lexa leaves her, she is kissing her back. Just as hard, just as passionate, just as sweet.

For a moment it feels like Clarke isn’t the only one lost and alone on this island for the brokenhearted. Love pounds in her veins and pours out of her soul like she was built and produced to feel and feel and feel until there was nothing left in the world to feel for. Her heart felt like it was attacking and expanding until she was sure it would explode in her chest and end her very life just as she maybe wanted to actually live it.

Clarke’s arms circled the little waist in front of her, pressed the girl too her to make sure there really was absolutely no room left between them. Her fingers gliding up the back she had memorized in the shower, across the long tattoo that started from the middle of her neck and ended at the very end of her spine. She caressed it like she could actually feel the ink spreading from her back to her own finger tips.

She felt the girl shudder to her touches, heard her hum to her kisses, swallowed that hum as her tongue pushed into her mouth to touch her own and Clarke answered with her own hum because kissing Lexa Woods was like breathing for the first time, or like experiencing the most beautiful thing in the world for the very first time. She smelled like fall and rain and looked like the sky when it cried. She tasted like spring and summer and was warm like the breezes during those seasons.

Clarke fell deeper in love in that very moment then she had of all the moments that she had, had to fall deeper for Lexa. Because kissing Lexa was like coming home, and now that she was here. She never wanted to leave.


	4. Afraid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas Eve everyone. :D  
> Or happy holidays or whatever.
> 
> Hope you're having a great day! :)

Lexa woke up with a pounding and maybe she could even call it an aggressive headache. The pulse in her head didn’t quit as she slowly came from her sleep, and it only made it worse when she grumbled out loud, burying her face in the pillow beside her, breathing in the scent of it deeply.

It smelled like Clarke and she found comfort in that, even if she was slightly unaware of why her own pillow would smell like the blonde girl. But it was in the next moment that she knew why, because she felt a cold hand slide along her hip under the relatively long shirt she was wearing and she knew she must have fallen asleep in Clarke’s bed, but she couldn’t figure out why.

Whenever the two did sleep in the same bed, it was rarely ever in Clarke’s room. That was probably more Lexa’s fault then Clarke’s, since she preferred to be in a bed untainted by Clarke’s many look-alike conquests.

She couldn’t remember anything from the moment she had downed that third shot with Lincoln at the party last night.

She knew physically, she felt ill, and there was no way she was getting out of bed this morning, not for anything. Not even to walk down the hall, through the living room, to the other side of the house for her own bed. Not even for food, which she was sure Clarke was going to offer when she was ready to get up herself. The thought of food just turned her stomach more, and the fact that she was lying on it wasn’t helping much.

Her throat was dry and her lips were chapped and even the darkness behind her eyelids felt like it was too bright. She grumbled again, tried to adjust off her stomach slightly and burrowed further into the comforting smell of Clarke, that surrounded her from all sides.

Perhaps they should spend more nights in Clarke’s bed, because it was sure working nicely on her hangover.

Clarke said nothing to her right, just pushed her cold palm from her bare hip and up the back of her shirt, where she traced the bottom of the tattoo there and Lexa felt her body respond to it in a way it never had before. Lighting up and _aching_.

She pouted into the pillow and tried to remember the last time she literally _ached_ for Clarke’s touch.

She tangled her fingers into the pillow as well, as if to anchor herself there, like Clarke’s touch was teaching her how to float, and tried to think of things that she despised to get a handle on herself. It didn’t work much, but it helped stop her skin from goose bumping as Clarke brushed her fingertips past her hip and along part of her stomach and then around to her back again.

Why was Clarke touching her like that anyways?

Clarke was never nice during her own hangover. She was pushy and even louder than usual. She was rather unpleasant as well, sneering at everything Lexa would do and telling her that if Lexa asked her to take medicine one more time she might actually slap her.

She always had to bite back a smile whenever she said things like that because she knew Clarke was completely and utterly full of it. Clarke would never place an ungentle hand on her, and she always eventually took medicine anyway, no matter how much she pretended she wasn’t going to listen to Lexa.

Maybe Clarke didn’t drink last night, she was pretty adamant on being well enough for her photo-shoot today, and she told Lexa she’d get her up for her test, which Lexa was pretty sure she was just going to blow off because there was no way she was getting out of this bed. Absolutely no way.

“You look dead,” Lexa, up until this moment, had been sure that Clarke was not capable of whispering in the morning, but here she was, doing just that. Her voice was like a pleasant wave washing over Lexa and comforting her twisting belly.

Her body really hated her this morning, in more ways than just rebelling against her partying. “I am dead.” She croaked into the pillow, wincing as she spoke because it made the aggressive pounding in her head just that much worse than it had been before.

“You have a test, remember.” Clarke whispers, her voice sounding smooth and like summer vacation. It made Lexa smile into her pillow before she was frowning at her own thoughts. She was too out of it to control them, and that was dangerous.

“I’m not leaving this bed.” She grumbled, voice cracking along words, even as her throat protested the action. She really did need some water though. She felt the pout on her face increase as she squeezed into the pillow again, thinking of the consequences that would come from not getting any water even though she really needs it.

“You can open your eyes, I closed the curtains.” Clarke slides along the sheets, and Lexa swears she can feel the heat from her body emanating off the girl and onto her very skin. The cold palm on her back was feeling rather warm and her body shuddered as it moved up to the middle of her back and traced invisible patterns there that made her whimper slightly. She wished the sound didn’t leave her throat but she couldn’t stop it, and hoped that Clarke would just think it was her grumbling about her hangover.

She let her eyes peak open slightly to see the girl hovering above her slightly, leaning up on her elbow to look down at her. But she couldn’t really see her all that well, even though her eyes seemed to glow in the darkness of the room. There are dark blue curtains that cover the window of the left side of the wall, but small bits of sunlight still leaked into all the little parts it could manage. It would only hurt if Lexa looked directly at it, so instead she let her eyes adjust to the darkness and study the look on the girl’s face in front of her.

She couldn’t read her, but she looked worried. Her eyes are soft and shining with emotion in a way that Clarke never lets show. _Something happened last night._ She can’t help but think as the image of Clarke’s worried eyes enters her brain and she watches the slight tilt of the corner of Clarke’s mouth.

The girl in front of her licked her lips and removed her left hand from Lexa’s back to bring it up to her wild brown hair, that was surely scrawled out all along the pillow and looking terrible. Delicate and gentle fingers tangle through her brown curls and pushed them back from Lexa’s face. The touch was sweeter than the one that had been on her skin, and it was making Lexa’s stomach flip for reasons that weren’t at all involved with nausea.

That too warm feeling was surfacing all over her body, and she was sure if it wasn’t dark, Clarke would be able to see the way that she was blushing and just how much. There used to be a thread, but now it felt like that was nonexistent, like the thread that had been thinning between them had never even existed.

_It must have snapped._

No, she knows it snapped last night because she can’t stop the thoughts that surface in her head as Clarke looks at her like that. Not the scared ones, but the ones that she leaves in the darkness of her own bedroom. The ones that imagine a curvy body, naked and sweet beside her, the ones that imagine what it would be like to kiss her pretty pink lips until they were chapped and swollen, even though they looked to be like they were right now. Thoughts that she would fight and wrestle into the deepest parts of herself until she fell asleep and couldn’t fight them, or ached before bed and she couldn’t stop them.

She _ached_ now, but this was different.

The way she ached was different. It wasn’t just in the most intimate parts of her body, but it felt like it was all over her, and when Clarke touched her, it was overwhelming but it was never enough all at the same time. That thread she had been so afraid of breaking had snapped into a million pieces and flown over the entire world and Lexa had no idea what the hell she was supposed to do about it now.

She didn’t prepare for this at all. She couldn’t rebuild it, she couldn’t stop the _aching_ that had started to take its rightful place deep and cushioned straight into the depths of her heart. Clarke had never looked so beautiful to her than she did in the darkness of her own room, hovering over her and looking at her like she was nothing less than the entire universe to her.

And she should be scared, she should be very extremely scared, but that’s not really what was running through her mind in that moment. Even as the word she hated most was circling in her brain and surrounding an image of Clarke she’d never be able to forget for as long as she were to live, and maybe even beyond. She wasn’t scared, she was just consumed.

She was consumed and aching and _in love_.

Just very, very in love.

“Clarke,” She gasped slightly as the feeling weighed her heart to her stomach, and turned and twisted it like she was going to throw it up.

“You going to be sick?” Clarke asked quickly, sitting up straighter, fingers gripping Lexa gently to help pull her from her haven of pillows. The concern was in every crevice of her very blue eyes and seeped into the very core of what made Lexa, _Lexa_.

“No, no,” Lexa felt her stomach turn as she sat up. She gripped Clarke’s shoulder in the next moment and muttered “maybe,” as it turned more tightly, even as her thoughts distracted her from her illness.

_Love_.

She felt a nasty sinking feeling start in the tips of her fingers and rush through her body until she was starting to feel numb and again, she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t scared, but she didn’t feel pleasant as she ached in her place, and felt her body screaming in protest as the word circled through her thoughts and bites at her beliefs.

She hated that word; she hated its vulnerable meaning. She hated its power that it managed to always hold over another’s head, without fail. She hated it so deeply that even as she looked at Clarke, and felt it in every piece of her, she couldn’t tell the girl, she couldn’t mutter it because how dare that word even pretend it has a place to be thought in her head, how dare it even attach its atrocity of a self to something as beautiful and precious as Clarke Griffin when it was possibly the most terrible thing that could ever occur in a person’s life.

How dare Lexa let herself place this burden on Clarke, who didn’t deserve to have the responsibility of Lexa’s feelings weighing over her day to day life decisions even if Clarke was completely impossible not to fall in love with. The entire world was in love with Clarke Griffin because she was what the definition of happiness was. Even when she was being sarcastic and joking when she shouldn’t be and glaring at someone who cut them in line or said they didn’t like a movie she adores. Even when she was afraid and hiding into the curve of Lexa’s neck because there were too many people and Lexa was the only one that could bring her home. Even when Lexa had to spend the day picking up pieces of Clarke off of the floor because she was too sad, too broken, she was still happiness.

Lexa didn’t think it was possible for her to hate the word love any more than she had before until she fully realized that she was in it, and that pissed her off.

“Can you get me some water?” Lexa bites slightly, as the rage surfaces through her body. It makes Clarke look at her curiously for a moment, before her blues are saying something else other than the words of affirmation that come from her lips.

Clarke is gone from the bed when Lexa starts to shake with her anger as the word surfaces and makes her chest ache with its four ugly letters. She mulls it over and over trying to remove the bitter taste it leaves in her mouth until she has to shut her eyes because she is _shaking_ with her anger.

It’s not until she smells the coffee seeping through the hallways and into the slight crack Clarke had left in her door, because of course it’s open, that she feels herself start to calm down. And the realization that surfaces through her head is a lot different than that of a word that had made her want to vomit it up earlier.

_Clarke is in love with her._

In fact, she’s sure that the feeling angers Clarke as much as it angers her, but the fact of the matter is, is that Clarke is in love with her too. Which means that Lexa can’t run from this feeling like she would do with anyone else, because Clarke is in love with her and she could never, ever hurt Clarke like that.

If Clarke feels half the way that Lexa is feeling right now, she could never, and will never leave her to suffer with her feelings, to ache and burn with them in her chest all alone. She will never make it worse, or make Clarke regret feeling it because she can’t. She can’t and she won’t do that to Clarke.

Not Clarke, who deserves every last thing that the world could possibly give her.

She forgets how selfish being in love can be, and promises herself, from this moment forward, that she will do everything she can to make Clarke happy. To never hurt her and to protect her from the aching and torture that a feeling like this can burden on even the purest of humans.

Clarke tips the door open with her foot because she has a glass in each hand, and Lexa lets herself collapse back against the mattress as the light from the hallway seeps into the room. Clarke gives her an apologetic, but beautiful look and closes the door until it clicks.

_She actually closed it._

Clarke places a mug on the nightstand next to Lexa’s side of the bed and urges the brunette to sit up in her place. She grumbles as she pulls herself back up from the mattress and takes the cup, shivering slightly as Clarke’s fingers brush her own. She’s thankful for how cold the water is when it washes down her throat and circles through her belly and realizes immediately how incredibly thirsty she really was.

She downs the glass quickly, earning her the most adorable giggle from the figure now sitting on the right side of the bed, leaning over her slightly, and watching her with an adorable grin on her face. “I’ll get you more,” She takes the empty glass from Lexa, but before she can stand Lexa places her palm on the girl’s wrist to grab her attention.

Pretty nervous blue eyes attach to hers and what Lexa was going to say dies in her throat, because Clarke looks terrified. She looks afraid out of her mind and the last thing Lexa wants to do is have Clarke be afraid of her because of that atrocious word circling in both of their heads.

So Lexa offers her best reassuring smile and instead of saying what she was going to say, she mutters, “Lets order in for food.”

The soft adoring smile that attaches to Clarke’s lips is everything, and Lexa could swim in it before the blonde tips forward and presses a gentle sweet kiss to the top of Lexa’s head that makes her heart stutter and thump in her chest until she is sure her breathing is matching its rhythm.

“Will do.”

Lexa _aches_ as she watches her leave her door open again.

 

 

***

 

Clarke is literally stressed out; just waiting for the moment Lexa remembers what they had done the night before. She couldn’t even enjoy the fact that her lips were still swollen and chapped and tasted of sweetness and rain like Lexa. She couldn’t even enjoy the fact that she had gotten to spend literally hours, until they didn’t have the energy anymore, kissing the girl, and listening to her mumble drunken confession of how pretty she thought Clarke was against her lips.

If Lexa knew, she’d be pissed. She’d be pissed and then she’d be running.

Clarke had poured her soul, her entire being into those kisses. She hated her vulnerability but found it was impossible not to be when Lexa was kissing her back just as passionately, with her fingers so tightly wound in her hair. It was impossible not to show Lexa how loved she was, when she kissed like she didn’t know what a soft touch had ever felt like until Clarke.

Perhaps the blonde actually believed that Lexa didn’t know such things. Her upbringing with her uncle was rough, her father before him wasn’t much better. She had never known her mother. Lexa was afraid for a reason. She has been hurt so many times before her, Clarke can’t imagine letting herself touch Lexa any other way then gently.

When Lexa had finally fallen asleep, Clarke, even though exhausted, had stayed awake for hours mulling over her actions and her love for the green eyed girl that slept like the dead beside her. She watched her, watched how unmoving she was and wondered if she had always slept this way, or if someone earlier in her life had scared it into her. If she slept so quietly because she was afraid that if she made a noise, even unconsciously, something would happen to her and Clarke ached for that image of a little face, scared of the dark but scared of the light too.

She fell asleep at some point, with her fingers tangled in brown hair and her lips hovering over that of the brunette’s swollen ones from all of their gentle kisses they had shared. But she didn’t get much, with her own nightmares and her own worries, and woke up promptly two hours before Lexa, again to watch her sleep as if she were not alive at all.

Lexa was so quiet, conditioned to be so. Brought up that if she had made even the slightest noise, she was doing something incredibly wrong. She was bred to only speak when spoken too, to only ask questions that a well-mannered, good Christian girl would ask. Lexa has always been afraid. Clarke met her afraid, and fell in love with her while she was afraid. Clarke loves her no matter how afraid she is and will always be, and yearns to protect her from everything that makes her afraid. So what does Clarke do when she becomes the thing that Lexa is afraid of?

What does Clarke do when Lexa is afraid to be loved and all Clarke can manage to do is love her?

She spends her time at her photo-shoot trying to find some kind of solution to her problem, but she long ago learned that falling out of love with Lexa Woods was impossible. Lexa was precious, unique, one of a kind. You don’t fall out of love with someone that cannot be replicated, ever. You don’t fall out of love with someone who you can’t quite capture through a picture right, just because she has so much more to offer in the present. You don’t fall out of love with Lexa, you just fall deeper. There is no stopping it.

She’s distracted even as the studio smells of makeup and hairspray and a thickness that only a place like this can have. Her make-up artists and costume designers spend hours trying to get her attention, trying to shape her mind to be ready for the flashing of cameras that are about to take place, but Clarke can’t focus. She can’t focus when Lexa lies at home, in her bed with a pitiful hangover and unaware of how many kisses they had shared the night before. She can’t focus when her mind can’t decide if she should tell Lexa, talk to Lexa about why, or if she should pretend and pretend and pretend like she has done since she first realized that she was in love with the beautiful and afraid girl.

She thinks about how pitiful and weak she sounds to herself. It’s not just Lexa that’s afraid anymore, Clarke is afraid.

Afraid of losing her, afraid of not being enough even if she keeps her, afraid of not being able to love Lexa the way that she deserves, afraid that Lexa won’t want her love, even as its presented to her in the small tasks of their day to day life. She’s afraid of being in love as much as the next, but she can’t imagine that anyone else is ever as afraid to have someone else return those feelings back.

Because if Lexa loves her too, how does she protect Lexa from that?

The people in the studio shout at her so many times. They yell that she needs to focus, yell to look this way and that, yell that she needs to change into the next outfit. There is so much yelling that it makes Clarke dizzy, and at some point she even thinks the camera, with its flashes, and long lenses, is yelling at her as well. She longs to be home, taking care of Lexa, even if she isn’t quite sure she completely knows how to do that anymore.

She leaves her set early, people protesting as she does. She’s not even fully dressed, a robe clinging to her body that doesn’t belong to her as she flings the studio doors open and grits her teeth as people yell and yell and _fucking_ yell after her. People never stop demanding things of her, they never do. No matter how much she gives, how much dignity she gives up, how much money she earns them, they never shut the _hell_ up.

Clarke doesn’t drive home when she reaches her car, but she still drives for a long, long time. She drives toward the cemetery outside of town, based in a small little area in New York just outside of Manhattan. The population is less than 3,500 people and she figures that someday this town won’t exist at all. It’s raining when she parks, and reaches in the back for the first hoodie she finds, uncaring that WOODS is stamped on the back in white letters, and she doesn’t even remember where Lexa got the sweater or what the hell it was even for but she removes her robe and pulls it on. She wishes she could change out of the high heels and leather pants as well but she had left without her original clothes, so she was stuck with what she had on.

It didn’t feel appropriate enough to visit her parents, but she’s sure that they’ll understand.

She pulls herself out of the car, locks it quickly and struggles to not sink into the ground with every step she takes as the area becomes increasingly muddy. She walks forever, passed gravestone after gravestone and she wonders where all these peoples families are, how many people they have left behind, how many people they had loved and how many had loved them. The thoughts make her heart ache as she reaches her destination and she stands for only a moment, as the rain pours down around her and she stares at her parents, just as she had through most of her high school life.

She steps forward, between both of the gravestones, and places both palms on both her right and left side. She closes her eyes for a moment and takes in a deep, deep breath before she mutters, “I’m in love.” But it’s not loud enough to hear her through the rain. So she sits down in-between the two gravestones, aware of the wet ground squelching beneath her, and brings her knees to her chest. Her long heels dig into the muddy ground.

“I think you would like her.” Clarke says to her right, before she turns to her left. “She’s good at soccer, you would like that Dad. But,” Clarke turns back to her right. “She likes to write, and she’s so, so good at that. I know how you loved a good book mom.” She leans her head against her mother’s gravestone for a while and watches the rain slow down slightly. She is already soaked down to the core, but she isn’t bothered. She’s used to the cold.

“I’m sorry it’s been so long since the last time I was here.” She whispers, letting her eyes find the sky. The angry clouds remind her of Lexa, but only because Clarke often related stormy days to the way that Lexa’s eyes look, and the girl smells like rain, and Clarke has always loved that.

“Maybe someday I’ll bring her to meet you both.” Clarke reaches out her left hand to touch her father. “I wish you were here so I could tell you how afraid I am.” She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to remind herself of her parents’ faces, even though the image is cloudy and takes her a moment, she conjures it up until it’s clear. “I love her very much.” Clarke’s voice breaks a moment. “I wish you could be here to tell me not to be afraid anymore.” Clarke’s palm tightens around the gravestone and she wraps her free hand around her legs again and she buries her face into her knees to just breathe for a second.

The rain eventually stops, and Clarke is freezing, but she waits just a moment longer before she stands from her place. She turns before she leaves and smiles at them. “I won’t bring flowers next time, so don’t ask.” She jokes, and she knows it’s sad of her to do, but it helps her feel better whenever she comes so she says it anyway. “I have to go home now, to the girl I love, I will bring her next time, maybe she’ll bring flowers instead.” Clarke teases, but her small smile doesn’t last long, because like every visit, she never gets a reply. The air is still and quiet and full of emptiness that makes Clarke’s heart ache and ache until it’s slightly hard for her to breathe.

She makes it back to the car, shivering and her heart heavy and thinks of home, where Lexa is warm and lies sweetly in her bed, maybe even asleep. She can’t wait to get there, even if she is afraid, she can’t wait to see her. Because even though she sleeps like she’s dead, she’s not. She’s very much alive, and Clarke loves her so and Clarke will protect her. She will do her best, in whatever way she can, she’ll protect her.

If that has to be from herself, she’ll figure it out.

 

 

***

 

Lexa got antsy. She couldn’t stay in Clarke’s bed all-day. By midday her headache had transferred into a dull throb, and even though everything was still too bright, she managed to be able to tolerate it easily. It was easy to lose herself in the smell of Clarke’s sheets, since they made her feel safe and warmer then she should, but she couldn’t just sit there all day. She had plans to not leave, but she had to talk to someone about how she was feeling and it couldn’t be Clarke.

So she thought of the next best person and impulsively decided to go. She did text her, after she had parked outside of her apartment, but she didn’t wait for a reply and had sprung out of her car so quickly she had to tell herself to calm down and take a few deep breathes. She knocked on the door way to many times for someone who was “calm” and waited impatiently for seconds that felt like forever until the door flung open. But it wasn’t the girl she was looking for, and she immediately felt the frown on her face increase so extensively that the girl before her couldn’t help the chuckle that she released from her throat.

She regarded Lexa easily, with deep brown knowing eyes and grinned at her very widely. “Not the person you were looking for huh?” Raven tilts her head just right to the side, exposing her neck to the light. Her bun slumps to the side too, but only slightly, and Lexa is confused why she is even looking at the dark haired girl.

“Not really, no offense.” Lexa gestures with her hands to ask if she can come in, and Raven’s eyes widen a moment like she knew she had forgotten to do something. She pulls the door open wide enough for Lexa to enter, and slams it shut after she does, making Lexa jump slightly and grab onto her chest. Raven chuckles and mutters a sheepish apology.

“Anya’s in the shower, we were working late last night so I slept on the sofa.” Raven offers finally as an explanation as to what she’s even doing in the girl’s house at 3:00 P.M. in the afternoon, knowing that Lexa really does want to know but she wasn’t comfortable enough to ask.

Lexa was shy around most people and Raven wasn’t really an exception to that rule. “I need to talk to her.” It comes out breathy and a lot more vulnerable then she had meant it, but the subject she was about to talk about was new to her. New and frightening and it really didn’t take much to scare Lexa, so even just thinking about talking about it made her shiver slightly, and not in the same way that Clarke normally made her shiver.

_Will she even be able to get the words out?_

“About last night?” Raven asks lightly. She seems to be regarding Lexa gently, like she knows far more then Lexa could ever know and in a sense Lexa assumes that knowledge is probably true. Raven was intelligent and good with people. She was a lot of things that Lexa could never be.

“Um, not quite.” Lexa glanced around the apartment nervously as she thought about all that she could remember from last night which was barely anything. She could remember falling asleep to Clarke’s breath on her lips; she could remember dancing with everyone before she felt this terrible need, as she normally does at such parties, to find Clarke. But other than that, most is blank, and that was something that bothered Lexa very much, especially as the day continued and she got very little of her memory back.

As she regards Raven in front of her, she becomes well aware of the fact that Raven seems to know something about last night that Lexa is almost sure her brain will never remember and the question “Can you tell me what happened last night?” tumbles from her lips before she can stop it.

The dark haired girl in front of her looks bewildered at the question. Clearly, whatever had happened Raven had surely thought she’d remember, and obviously whatever it was, was personal, because the girl in front of her could suddenly not meet Lexa’s eyes and was shifting awkwardly from foot to fake foot. “Um,” and “Uh,” ineloquently stumbled from her plump lips as she rubbed the back of her neck and looked down at her toes.

Lexa rolled her very green eyes. “Never mind,” She snaps slightly, not meaning it to sound harsh, but her emotions were running high and the subtle anger she had felt earlier was still kind of there, rebelling against her better judgment.

“Well, what do you remember?” Raven bites her bottom lip, like she’s still unwilling to divulge such information, even though it’s obviously significant to Lexa’s life, and possibly has so much to do with Clarke that would explain her snapped thread that she had been tip-toeing around for literally weeks as if not to break it.

She would just like to know how she broke it. “Not much,” Lexa grunts impatiently, and looks toward the hall that leads towards the bathrooms where Anya must be. She’s half tempted to storm past the girl looking at her like she’s some delicate flower toward the bathroom, so she can finally unload every last thing she’s feeling on someone who won’t turn her away, but will listen to every last one of her insecurities, and call her stupid for having the ones she knows she has because she knows it’s stupid and she needs to hear someone say it so she can get her strength up.

She’s not in the mood to deal with girls that are still in love with Clarke Griffin trying to decide if they’re going to help her or not. She doesn’t have time for it.

But just as she’s about to do as she thinks, Raven takes a daring step forward and she says. “You’re in love with Clarke,” and it feels like a bucket of cold ice water is being spilled over Lexa’s head.

The way it sounds out loud makes the brunette’s heart race so fast she’s sure it’s bound to pop out of her chest and run all by itself. The soft look in Raven’s eyes makes it worse, like she understands, but of course she understands, because she too has fallen in love with Clarke and has not managed to fall out of love with her. Not that, that’s even possible, you don’t fall out of love with a girl that holds the entire universe in her eyes.

“I am,” Lexa manages to say, surprising herself with how much conviction she had managed to put in it.

By the look on Raven’s face, she did not just shock herself. “You are.” Raven confirms further. “You guys, you both kissed last night, on the dance floor, and Clarke ran away and you told me that you love her.” Raven explains, watching Lexa carefully as she speaks.

Lexa didn’t know that hearing such things would take such a toll on her but it did. Her heart didn’t stop but it made her feel cold and icy and angry and afraid, so, so afraid. She collapsed against the couch she sought out, that still had a rather large fluffy blanket over it, and cradled her own head in the palm of her hands as her elbows rested on her knees.

She can remember some things coming back to her now, standing in Clarke’s door way, the blonde crying, the girl saying _sorry_ way to many times. She can remember her kiss, and can feel her body tingle at the memory and she shuts her eyes as if to capture the moment and keep it forever. She had kissed Clarke Griffin and she could barely remember it and that wasn’t fair at all.

She pouted where she sat. “What do I do?” She asks out loud but she doesn’t particularly ask Raven or anyone really. She just asks because she needs to, because she’s afraid and all alone in this and she isn’t sure what she’s supposed to do with it.

“You tell her,” Raven answers anyways, and she slumps into a cushion right next to Lexa but doesn’t touch her.

Lexa wonders if this is hard for Raven to hear.

“I couldn’t. It’s not what Clarke wants.” Lexa mutters lifting her head from her hands and meeting Raven’s soft brown orbs.

She looks confused and Lexa can’t blame her. “I understand you’re afraid, Lex, but trust me, Clarke wants you.” Raven rolls her eyes as she says it and the action makes Lexa smirk slightly because Raven never was particularly good at giving advice to others or even understanding Lexa in the slightest and yet here they were, sharing a mutual love.

“I know she wants me.” Lexa sighs. “I’ve known about Clarke’s feelings for a while.” Lexa pouts again, resting her chin against the palm of her left hand as she recalls the night she was stuck in the hallway, the night that terrible lookalike had muttered and giggled and taken a place in Clarke’s bed that she had never deserved. “But Clarke is complicated.” Lexa looks at the ceiling fan and watches as it spins in circles, letting the silence of the room wash over her for a while in thought before she speaks again. (Raven must have been able to tell she wasn’t finished because she sits in the silence, only listening.) “I don’t handle things like this well.” Lexa examines the chains to turn the fan on and the light on and watches as they swing slightly with the light movements of the blades. “Clarke knows that, she knows me.” Lexa thinks this is probably the most she has ever said to the dark haired girl beside her. “Clarke’s scared and I don’t want her to be scared of me.

“I want her to know I’m not going to hurt her.” Lexa’s eyebrows scrunch together as she thinks because love is a terrible word, one she has never wanted to associate herself with, or say to someone else. It’s too powerful and often too selfish and she can still barely understand why she has to feel it, but she finds it amazing, how love can take everything she’s ever believed in and throw it away. It completely washes it down the drain.

She is willing to give up her fears for Clarke because she loves her, and that is something that just doesn’t make any sense. Whatever Clarke wants Lexa will give to her because she wants to protect the blonde girl. She wants Clarke to have everything and if Clarke wants her, no matter how afraid and fearful she may be, Lexa will give herself to Clarke. She wants to make Clarke happy, she wants Clarke to never hurt and to never know any more pain than she currently already does.

She wants Clarke, and that is even scary then any word ever could be.

She should be running, but she doesn’t think she could ever actually run from Clarke. “You two seriously need to talk, do you ever communicate?” Raven scoffs and it makes Lexa roll her pretty green orbs in a circle because of course Raven would take something as serious as Lexa _not fucking running_ and scoff at it.

Luckily, she has someone to understand her more when a girl appears from the shadow of the hallway and beams over at the sofa where she sees Lexa. “I just got your message, I’m sorry.” Anya mutters lightly and guides her way toward the couch, shoving Raven aside rather playfully so she can flop into the cushion next to Lexa. “What’s up, you look troubled?” Anya asks lightly and Raven scoffs again.

“Oh, you have no idea.” She mutters and pushes herself up from the couch. “I’m going to make some tea; I know how you love tea Lexa.” She rolls chocolate orbs, but it’s light, almost affectionate, and it makes Lexa’s heart stutter in her chest just a moment, because she didn’t know Raven knew what she liked to drink. She didn’t know that Raven cared what she liked to drink.

The thought makes her smile even though she tries to fight it. “So what’s up?” Anya asks easily, hand slapping down on Lexa’s knee and the easiness of the interaction comforts Lexa in a way most other things in life cannot.

Anya knows how to handle situation where Lexa talks about her feelings. She knows Lexa better than most. “I’m in love with Clarke.” She says her throat scratchy and light and she surprises herself at how easy the words had slipped off her tongue.

Sure it makes her heart sink and her stomach twist, and sure the flighty feeling becomes stronger than ever, but the feeling to stay, the feeling of wanting Clarke is stronger than any of those other feelings. She tries to swallow her emotions so she can appear less vulnerable, but she’s sure it does no good whatsoever.

“You _fucking_ what?” Anya says breathlessly, and it makes Lexa flinch. Though Anya’s palm is immediately on her knee again, squeezing reassuringly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I just mean. I never thought I’d hear you, _Lexa_.” Anya’s voice is gentle, not lighthearted as these exchanges normally go.

Lexa thinks that perhaps Anya will have to adjust to such a conversation, since they’ve never had one like it before. “I want to stay.” Lexa admits out loud, feeling brave enough to say it, and her voice is even stronger to match her words so Anya will without a doubt take her seriously, not that she wouldn’t in the first place.

A delicate palm squeezes her knee again. “You won’t even tell me you love me that Clarke Griffin has to give me her secret.” Lexa is rolling her eyes and turning her head to look at Anya to give her a stern look.

_This is serious, listen to me._

“Right, right, I’m sorry. So tell me how you figured this out?” Anya encourages, removing her hand from Lexa’s knee and leaning back into the couch. A small gentle smile placed easily on her lips as she regards Lexa lovingly, almost sisterly.

Lexa can trust her, so she tells her. She tells her of the first moment she had fallen in love with Clarke Griffin, probably around the time that she had moved in, and of this very morning that they had just shared together. She tells her of the thread that she had compared many of their actions too and of how she found it utterly destroyed and obliterate this morning when they had awoken and Clarke was there, smelling of peaches and sunshine and something so Clarke that it can’t be named any other way.

Anya, unaware of how to handle this situation, since they had never had it before, just sits and listens and nods and smiles and laughs at all the right times. She encourages her best friend and hides her utter surprise because she had never thought she’d ever hear Lexa Woods utter the words _“I’m in love”_ ever in her life.

This is something so lovely, so very new, and though she’s never truly liked Clarke very much, she now has to speak to her again. She has to see her. Something in her is telling her that this girl must be worth it, because Lexa doesn’t love easily, and even when she does, she doesn’t acknowledge that she does. Lexa runs from love, but here she is, lighting up when she speaks of blonde hair and blue eyes and a smell that reminds her of sunshine.

Maybe Anya kind of knew already that Clarke Griffin and Lexa were in love, maybe she already knew that just as most of their friends had sort of caught on as well, but she never thought the Lexa she would get on her couch would be the one that is here now, speaking of love like a new beginning rather than the worst thing that could ever happen to her. She figured Clarke would be the first to break and that Lexa would run to her with tears and she will shake with fright and Anya would try and try to tell Lexa to not be afraid but it wouldn’t work, just as it’s never worked. She figured the Lexa she’d see on her sofa would be a mess that had run from the best thing that could ever happen to her.

But that is not the case, and as Raven sets down the tea in front of them, and Lexa is too busy talking with her hands and lighting up with everything she has to say to even drink it, she is surprised by the very new gentleness she sees in the brown eyed girl’s eyes for Lexa, that had certainly not been there before.

Anya has no idea how long it is before Lexa is finally done talking, finally done spilling her guts out. Their mugs are empty, that’s for sure, and have long gone cold from the warm contents that had been in them. Lexa is in the middle of the couch by the end of the conversation, Raven on one side and Anya on the other as they listen to how in love Lexa is and Anya cannot help the happiness that envelopes her because she never thought she’d see this Lexa ever in her lifetime.

A Lexa that isn’t broken or afraid, but is brave, brave and in love.

And the girl really doesn’t want advice, she just wanted to talk, she just had to tell someone because she doesn’t think she can quite tell Clarke and even though Anya and Raven spend quite a bit of their replies telling Lexa to tell Clarke how she feels, they are sure that the brunette probably won’t. When she leaves, Anya is surprised by how exhausted she is from the long conversation and when Raven is smirking at her knowingly she is unaware of how to even respond to her cocky little grin.

“You owe me fifty bucks.” The dark haired girl says, and Anya frowns because _oh yeah, of course_ she bet money the one time she’d be wrong about how Lexa would finally react even though any other time she would have been the one receiving the fifty bucks.

“How about I make dinner instead,” Anya offers up, and runs off to her kitchen before Raven can protest, even though she immediately begins too, chasing after her with determination.

 

 

Lexa gets home and the first thing she does is go for Clarke’s room. She had shut the door before she had left, but it was open now, at least half way, which means that Clarke had returned while she was out and she feels a slight pout grace her lips because she had wanted to be home before Clarke had gotten there.

She tips the door the rest of the way open with the tips of her fingers and feels her jaw tighten when she notices the Clarke that’s sitting at the edge of her bed. She feels her heart pick up its pace in a way it hasn’t quite done before, at least, it’s a bit different this time or maybe Lexa is just more aware of her body’s reaction when she sees the blonde now, she doesn’t know.

It doesn’t take her long to bend in front of the blonde, and she cups the cold face in front of her. “Clarke,” She notices the blue hoodie soaked and dripping on the girl’s body and how damp her hair is. She sees the way her face, caked in makeup, drips down her cheeks and she feels a deep frown etching onto her face before she can stop it.

This is her Clarke, her beautiful lovely Clarke and she looks so sad.

“You’re way to pretty to be frowning.” Clarke’s voice is raspy and deep and it makes Lexa shiver with the weight of it. She bites her bottom lip and grabs the hem of the dripping wet sweater Clarke has on. She avoids a deep blue gaze that is settled on her mouth, feeling like there is too much in her eyes for her to really handle right now.

“Why are you soaked? What the hell did you do?” Lexa scolds; pulling the sweater up over the girl’s head and hearing it thud against the floorboards because of how much water it contains. “You need to warm up, you are freezing.” She knows her tone is harsh for how vulnerable Clarke looks at the moment, but she can’t help the way that her heart pounds with worry. She rubs her hands up and down Clarke’s arms to try and create some warmth in the girl but she’s sure that does nothing, as Clarke continues to shiver in her place and look at her in the way that Clarke has come accustomed to looking at her these past weeks.

_She’s already doing a terrible job at protecting Clarke from this retched feeling._

“I have to tell you something.” Clarke whispers, and it’s soft and sweet and a complete contrast to how she looks but Lexa can’t be concerned with that right now.

She pouts at Clarke’s leather pants. “They put you in those again, seriously.” She snaps unhappily, popping the button on them undone and pulling down the zipper. “Let’s get you into the shower, you’re shivering.” Lexa mutters determinedly. She drops to her knees to unstrap long black high heels and she pulls each one from Clarke’s feet, sure that they are sore from the rather uncomfortable shoes, she rubs them briefly, aware of the hitch in Clarke’s breathe as she does so.

“Lexa, I have to tell you something.” Clarke says louder, more determined with her jaw clenching. But her voice still shakes so sweetly.

Lexa would normally stop and take her seriously because of how much emotion Clarke is letting herself show in this situation, but she thinks she already knows what the girl is going to say, and she isn’t sure, even after she has spent the day gushing and blubbering over the girl, if she is quite ready to hear her say them to her. Especially when she looks so pitiful. “It can wait until you are warm and clean and have these ridiculous pants off.”

Lexa stands up and pulls Clarke with her and notices her pout. It’s adorable and makes her do something completely impulsive and maybe idiotic, but she does it anyway. She leans in and kisses the frown gently off the girl’s face, reveling in the pleasant flip her belly does and the way Clarke hums into her kiss so soft and sweet.

_She tastes like peaches._

Lexa pulls away, because she’s afraid she’ll let this kiss become way too much, and she doesn’t want that right now. She just wants to comfort her, to let her know she knows, to show her that she’s staying, to show her that she wants her. She brushes wet strands from Clarke’s face and notices the way her eyes glimmer and shine with fresh tears and she wonders if there will ever be a time that Clarke will not cry when Lexa kisses her.

“Shower,” Lexa quirks an eyebrow at her as she demands so, and Clarke breaks her gaze from her long enough to grin slightly, with a light blush surfacing along her cheeks that Lexa wishes she could kiss in that very moment. She holds back the urge and instead she allows herself to examine Clarke’s movements as she struggles against her pants. She doesn’t let her gaze focus too much on one area of Clarke, treating this moment that she sees Clarke like this as she has every other time.

Clarke peels the pants off finally, she has too, they are wet and leather and by god how Lexa really hates leather pants, no matter how well the blonde makes them look. The brunette takes them from the blue eyed girl before she can object and she tosses them into the trashcan in Clarke’s room by the nightstand on the right side of her bed, which they sit rather close too, where Lexa had awoke just that morning. That earns a soft chuckle from the blonde which make’s Lexa’s heart stutter lightly in her chest as she grabs her hand and pulls her from the room, down the hall toward the small nook of a bathroom.

The water doesn’t take long to heat up but much like they do every time, they move slow. Clarke takes her time taking Lexa’s clothes off her body but unlike most of their other similar encounters Clarke allows herself to touch skin she would normally not touch so gently or for so long. Her finger tips brush across Lexa’s neck and down along her collarbones. She brushes her fingertips along the sides of Lexa’s breasts and smiles slightly when Lexa shivers and a small sound betrays her and falls from her mouth, it wasn’t quite a whimper, but it was close, though Lexa was giving her no indication that that noise actually came from her.

Lexa watches Clarke’s bright grin grow and her voice is very low when she says “you are shivering” even though she’s only teasing lightly she still pulls Lexa’s body very close to her own so they press together in a way they never have of all the times that they have done this before. Clarke’s gaze is far more confident than it’s ever been before in these moments and Lexa wonders if only one brief sober kiss can create such a response from the blonde, and if maybe she should do it again.

“Time to warm you up.” Clarke mutters near her mouth before sliding her hands from her hips to meet Lexa’s palms and she pulls her into the shower with her. The water is hot against their skin, and does nothing to calm a part of Lexa down that had begun to ache and burn the moment she had pulled that blue sweater off of her, or maybe the moment she woke up to those pretty blue eyes staring down at her. She isn’t sure when she started to _ache_ ; she just knows that it’s abundantly clear now that she won’t be able to ignore it anymore, or at least, not for much longer.

Though this shower is charged with something hidden under it, and Lexa swears she can feel some kind of new thread of its own forming, it isn’t much different from the others that they have taken together. There are just things about it that appear throughout the interaction that Lexa isn’t even sure if its technically classified as different or if Lexa’s just now noticing it with the deep ache she can feel taking place all over her body. They touch skin longer than they normally would have before, or at least Lexa thinks so, her brain isn’t exactly in the right place to focus enough to compare and contrast the many times they have done this together while Clarke is naked and wet in front of her, with water all over her body and specks of white soap washing down her back as she washes the shampoo from her own hair.

Her fingers itch and Clarke hums when Lexa finally tangles the digits in her hair to help and she washes it as gentle as ever. She knows she gets closer, because she can’t help it, her body is propelled forward by the ache and the need to be close to this girl before her that glistens and Lexa swears she might be an angel, or at least something more than human. Her body presses right up against Clarke’s and it doesn’t do anything to calm her down, but it feels good, it feels really good. She shivers as she can feel her fit, can feel her curves against her and its perfect. _It’s perfect._

It’s nothing more than a shower, but it still feels like everything to the both of them.

The shower doesn’t end until the water runs cold, and they can’t stay in any longer, almost as if they are both using it as some kind of excuse, even if Lexa isn’t completely sure what that excuse might be. Clarke flicks it off and her eyes are full of so much gentleness that the ache isn’t only in her body but finally travels to her heart. Her fingers graze across Clarke’s cheek, and she knows she’s telling too much but she has little control of that. She brushes her thumb across Clarke’s bottom lip and watches as they part, and listens as Clarke’s breath hitches in her throat.

Lexa knows this isn’t exactly protecting Clarke from the treacherous feeling they both have in their chests, but she can’t help herself. Love is indulgent and selfish, and she knows she’s being both of those things, but she can’t bring herself to turn away from the girl when she looks at her like that, like she is the center of life itself. It takes all the air from Lexa’s chest, all of the courage that she had earlier and she wants to run but she wants to stay, it’s confusing, and she is lost to it all. She is unaware of what she can do now, realizing that it’s too late to run, but that she is not enough for Clarke to stay.

It hurts, and if Clarke weren’t Clarke, Lexa would do the very Lexa like thing to do, and she’d pack and scream and break something and storm out. But the reality of the situation is that Clarke is who Clarke is, and Clarke means a lot more to Lexa than just some fling she has on the side, or her favorite television series that might get ruined or cancelled. Clarke is calming, like the water that spares on them when they shower. She’s warm and breathtaking and ever-present and though Lexa is afraid of her she can’t help the way her heart aches at the thought of leaving her.

She doesn’t want to know a life without Clarke in it. And maybe the blonde knows that she’s scared, because Clarke knows her better than anyone ever could, and maybe that’s way when Clarke leans forward she doesn’t kiss her on the mouth, but she kisses the corner of her mouth like she’s trying to promise something but Lexa doesn’t quite know what it is. She doesn’t have much time to think about it either, as Clarke’s fingers tangle with her own and she is pulling her from the shower again, wrapping a warm fluffy white towel around her body and rubbing off droplets of water for her before she’s grabbing her own.

Clarke is patient and kind and it makes Lexa wonder if Clarke would wait forever for Lexa to not be scared anymore. She knows she wouldn’t want Clarke to do that. She wants Clarke to be happy; she wants to make Clarke happy. The presence of fear is something that Lexa has always lived with, and she hopes that she will learn how to deal with it because Clarke is not someone she can afford to hurt out of her own fear.

She loves her.

They stay silent for a long time as they go through a routine, dressing and blow-drying each other’s hair, shivering at feather light touches and humming as fingers run through soft hair. When they are done they order pizza, and even though Lexa doesn’t really like pizza much, she still enjoys it as her and Clarke watch a television show that Lexa can’t quite remember much of because as they relax in Clarke’s bed she has the blonde girl leaning against her side, pressing to her firmly and warmly and Lexa _aches_.

Clarke’s head eventually slumps against Lexa’s shoulder and Lexa spends much of her time in the moment, watching the flutter of the blonde’s eyelashes as she struggles to keep her eyes open, and examining and memorizing the curves of her facial expressions. She is beautiful, and Lexa is in love with her, truly so. But she can’t bring herself to be too afraid as Clarke sleeps against her chest, breathing in deeply and quietly as the night flitters away. Eventually Lexa can’t keep her eyes open to watch the girl below her, and she falls asleep with thoughts consumed of pretty blue eyes and long blonde hair and touches that she’s too afraid to have and kisses that last way too long and sounds that Lexa knows Clarke would never make if it were real.

They both sleep and both remain very much in love with the each other.


	5. I Hope So

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this yesterday, but I just didn't have the time. So here it is today. :)  
> I hope all of you had a good Christmas, and a good day if you don't celebrate Christmas. 
> 
> This chapter is really, really fluffy, just so you know.

New York is always cold this time of year, far too cold for Lexa who enjoys the sunshine more than anything else. But Clarke rather likes it. She likes the small snow flurries and the pretty lights people put up this time of year, even if she hadn’t celebrated Christmas since tenth grade. She enjoys the way that it seems to make the people she cares about much lighter in their actions, including Lexa, even if this time of year holds some rather dark memories from her past as well.

The brunette always, every single year, tries to hide how much she loves the holidays, but she never can seem to hide anything from Clarke. And though Clarke doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and Lexa often spends the morning of the twenty fifth at Anya’s house, the blonde buys her something every year and wraps it in that stupid holiday paper that Lexa loves so much. This year, Clarke bought reindeer wrapping paper and wonders how anyone could at all find it cute, especially when you’re cutting it up and taping it in awkward positions.

But things have been a little different between the two since that party, and the day after, and Clarke thinks that maybe she might have a reason to celebrate Christmas, even if that sounds ridiculous. So Clarke buys one of those fake trees that light up in a bunch of different colors and spends way too much money on ornaments and Christmas decorations and has to acquire help from Octavia and then Octavia invites Lexa’s friend Lincoln for extra help, and together they both spend longer than Clarke would have on putting the tree together.

They bump each other a lot, and giggle and grin and it nauseates Clarke to the point that she actually has to excuse herself to her own room for a moment to breath because having other people in her house, other people flirting and acting the way that they were, in her house, was just a little bit overwhelming on this very day for some reason. She’ll be much happier once they leave and Lexa gets home to see what she has done.

She spends long bouts of moments just wondering if Costia even knows about where her fiancé is and what he might be doing with someone else. Then she wonders if Costia would even actually care. She doesn’t seem like the type of person to care much.

_Costia is her name right?_

Clarke must have lost herself in her own thoughts for longer than necessary because she could hear Octavia shouting her name and it sounded too loud in her little house. “Clarke, do you want to decorate the tree?” and a small sigh escapes Clarke before she can stop it because why does Octavia have to yell and why did she invite Lincoln when Clarke specifically only asked for her help. She didn’t like the thought of having Lincoln knowing about certain parts of Clarke’s life that she considered too be private, and Clarke celebrating Christmas was one of those things. She forces herself out of her room and back into the living room where the two before her stand too close to each other and they smile too obnoxiously at each other even as Clarke enters the room. It turns her stomach unpleasantly.

She wants them gone. “No, I want Lexa to do it. Thanks for the help.” Clarke offers as a way of goodbye without appearing rude, even though usually Clarke wouldn’t care that much about how rude she sounded. She didn’t want to get annoyed; she wanted things to be nice for Lexa when she got back. She wanted Lexa to like this idea and Clarke had no idea if she would.

The two, surprisingly, got the hint. Octavia hugs Clarke before she leaves and mumbles something about being proud of her, but Clarke just brushes it off and locks the door as they finally exit. There is nothing to be proud of in Clarke’s opinion. She’s doing something normal people do every year, its basic… but it’ll be nice for Lexa and that’s all that matters because Clarke wants to make Lexa happy. Clarke wants to celebrate holidays and birthdays and whatever else people celebrate with Lexa.

She just hopes that Lexa wants to celebrate these things with Clarke too.

She stares at the tree and the colors of it for a very, very long time after Octavia and Lincoln finally leave. It lights up with reds and blues and greens and yellows and so on continuously, flashing slowly and livening the small space of the living room. She never thought she much liked Christmas trees, but looking at this placed a small smile on her face. It truly was a pretty (even though it’s fake) tree. She had the other two move it in front of the large floor to ceiling windows and she thinks that this very spot has never looked prettier, she’s very happy that the tree is here. She jumps out of the trance to force herself into decorating a little bit around the house in a way she hopes Lexa likes because Lexa’s going to be home soon from her evening classes and she wants everything to be ready for her.

She hopes Lexa likes it.

Some of it feels too cheerful and she feels like it’ll be too much, but she knows Lexa will appreciate the effort at least. She knows how hard it actually is for Clarke to celebrate this holiday in particularly, since what was close to an anniversary she’d rather not celebrate instead. By the time she’s done, she’s still has Christmas lights to put on the house outside and lots of tree ornaments and decorations she hasn’t even touched. It all just seems like a lot of unnecessary work, but it’s for Lexa so she doesn’t mind as much.

She’s just opening a box of multicolored bulbs to check them over when the front door opens to signify that Lexa is home from her evening classes. She’s aware how nervous she is when she hears the door click open. She’s too nervous to actually look over at her, so she spends a very long time studying the image of the color of the bulbs of the picture on the box that’s in her hands. Maybe the colors will swallow her up before she has to actually explain herself to the pretty brunette girl.

The silence seems long and deafening as Lexa enters, and Clarke knows it’s really not that dramatic but she can’t help how her stomach twists and her hands shake. It’s like Clarke has shed a layer of her skin, and she’s naked in a whole new way in front of Lexa and she’s afraid Lexa isn’t going to want to see this side of her. She’s afraid that Lexa will find this to be all too much, realize what they’ve been doing the last few weeks, realize the feelings they’ve been sharing and this time will be it. She’d have enough and want to leave immediately.

Clarke really hopes she won’t.

“Why does it look like Santa Claus threw up in here?” and Clarke’s stomach twists as she hears the brunette speak finally, even if it hadn’t been that long that the silence stretched through the room. Clarke’s nerves feel as if they are boiling over and she feels disappointed in herself because of course it’s too much. Of course she’s done _way_ too much. Lexa is very simple, she _likes_ simple things. She’s done way too much, why did she do that? Clarke can feel her chest tightening and her breath pick up and she thinks about how silly it is that she’s beginning to panic over this but it is what it is, so she takes a couple of seconds with her eyes shut, trying to calm herself down when Lexa touches her shoulder and greets her the way that they have been greeting each other since things had changed from a couple of weeks ago, because of the kisses, and the unspoken words, because of that night that really changed their whole relationship, but not the way that Clarke had been worried that it would.

There’s a small brush of smooth lips against the corner of her mouth that immediately calms any of her worries and washes them away with warmth and a sense of hope that only Lexa can instill in her. Hope is a dangerous feeling, but it’s hard not to feel it when the girl beside her is so gentle and sweet and actually affectionate. She’s been this way for weeks, and sometimes yes, Clarke can see it in her eyes that she’s definitely not ready to talk about why, but she’s still here. She’s still here, even though Clarke has given her plenty of reasons to leave.

She smiles shyly at the figure now beside her and shrugs before looking back down at the lights in her hands. She wants to tell Lexa why Santa Claus threw up in their living room. She wanted to say it nonchalantly like it wasn’t a big deal, but it really was, so Clarke just kept her gaze down as she attempted to try and explain herself. “I thought that maybe,” She trails off because her nerves make her voice shake and she doesn’t want to say this like she’s unsure, but she doesn’t know how to gain any more control of herself then she already has.

Something about what she’s going to say feels big and significant, even if it really isn’t. But of course it feels that way because it is significant for Clarke because Clarke _wants_ to celebrate Christmas this year; she _wants_ to celebrate it with Lexa, and that’s not something that Lexa will take lightly because she knows Clarke. She knows everything about Clarke and celebrating Christmas is sure to finally scare her off because Clarke doesn’t celebrate holidays. She barely celebrates her birthday anymore. She didn’t have a family to celebrate them with, but now she felt like she might have one again, like Lexa is her family and maybe she has been for a while but Clarke is just now realizing what having a family means again, and it’s scary but it feels right like she was supposed to be celebrating things with Lexa a long time ago.

Slender fingers snatch up the box of bulbs from Clarke’s hands that she had begun to squeeze too tightly, surely Lexa noticed that but instead of acknowledging the fact, she just said, “thank god you didn’t get white lights,” like that would be the biggest crisis of this situation if there ever was one at all. Clarke is thankful that Lexa isn’t staring her down, it helps her calm herself, it helps her nerves as she struggles to think how she can tell Lexa how important she is without actually saying the words they keep tip-toeing around. Her body was brushing slightly against Clarke’s and it feels nice and Clarke feels safe with her so close, so she finds some courage to finish her sentence.

“I thought you could have Christmas here this year.” And maybe that wasn’t exactly what Clarke wanted to say but it got the point across at least, and she let out a relieved sigh as the words finally left her lips. Clarke manages to finally look at the brunette again, who is studying the multi-colored bulbs as she pulls them from the box, tipping over each one between her slender fingers until she seems satisfied with what she’s found. Her brows are furrowed together in thought as she studies the small bulbs in her hand and Clarke wonders if this is it. If she’ll leave her now, but then Lexa looks at her and Clarke doesn’t think Lexa will ever actually do that. She’s still here after all. Even with Clarke looking at her the way that she’s looking at her now, all hopeful and heart eyed and mushy as shit. Clarke would find it gross, if it wasn’t Lexa that she loved so much and it had been someone else.

It could never be anyone else though.

After a few moments that seem like forever, Lexa breaks the silence. “Just me?” She teases and Clarke knows that she’s just teasing. She can see it in the way a cute little brow pushes slightly upward before resting back in its place on her forehead. She can see it in the way her eyes light up slightly with her words, as if sunshine is peaking through the normally stable rainclouds. She can see it in the small upturn of her lips that look so soft and sweet and Clarke gets lost in following the shape of them before she can manage to fight out a reply because she really wants to kiss her, but they haven’t properly kissed since that night and Clarke isn’t sure if Lexa wants too again or not.

She hopes that she does.

“I mean,” Clarke swallows. “We could.” She says steadily, almost surprising herself by how easy it seemed to come out. She watches the light of pretty green eyes as they meet her own again. She can’t quite read them this time, maybe because she’s so scared and nervous herself. But Lexa looks really nice in her winter coat, so eventually she stops trying to figure out if Lexa is going to finally run from her or not and lets her arms wrap around a slender waist until a small body is fitting against her own. It sucks the air straight from Clarke’s lungs, as it does every time they touch.

Her insides twist and she loves that Lexa lets her do this now. She loves the small blush that crosses pretty cheekbones every time she does. And Lexa never says much and maybe sometime soon it won’t be enough, but right now, simple things like this are enough, because Lexa is still here and she’s trying and Clarke is too and it’s just enough for both of them right now.

“You want too?” Lexa says quietly, almost sounding insecure and as hopeful as Clarke feels. She pushes the bulbs gently on the countertop so she can free her hands and she can let them find Clarke’s hair quickly, where she brushes blonde strands back until Clarke’s breathe grows even and quiet again.

Lexa knows what she’s doing. Clarke is aware that Lexa always seems to know what to do with her, how to comfort her, even if she doesn’t need a lot of comforting and the thought pushes feelings around in Clarke’s chest that make her braver than she normally would be when she’s this close to the girl she’s in love with.

She kind of wishes she could say the words, but she knows they’re both not ready for that.

She needs to tell her, to say it out loud like this but she can’t seem to manage that so instead she settles with, “I want too with you.” And Clarke whispers the admission like it has the ability to change everything, and for sure this time, send the pretty brunette running out their front door, never to be seen again.

But it doesn’t do that. Nothing Clarke has done these past few weeks has sent Lexa anywhere but in her arms and that fact sets Clarke’s worries at ease a little bit. Lexa is still here and she doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon and that’s enough for Clarke for now because she’d never thought she’d get anything at all beyond what they’re routine was. Being pressed up against Lexa, holding her body close and warm in a place that wasn’t one of their beds felt surreal.

Lexa wanted her to hold her like this. Lexa liked it when Clarke touched her like this. In fact, Lexa has always liked it when Clarke touches her, even if it’s as simple as brushing her fingertips across the knuckles on her hand. She always blushes, she always breathes in deep like it’s hard for her to get any air at all and that’s how Clarke knows it’s not just her that feels this way. That’s how Clarke knows that Lexa feels everything Clarke feels on most days.

At least, she hopes that’s what it means.

It makes Lexa smile at her the way that she has been doing for a couple weeks now. She smiles so soft and sweet and like Clarke is the entire universe and the next and it scares the shit out of Clarke, if the blonde is honest, but it also makes her feel something else that is much stronger and more beautiful than fear. Clarke feels _hope_ , like everything that she could ever be afraid of was silly because Lexa seems to want her here too.

Maybe Clarke is no longer alone in this feeling or was never as alone as she thought she was. She wonders how she could go so long without seeing how Lexa reacts to her, without seeing the way that Lexa breathes deeper when Clarke touches her, or the way she shivers when Clarke’s fingers brush away the stray hairs on her face, or the way her eyes follow Clarke’s movements like she’s the only fascinating thing left in the world… Perhaps she did notice, but she was just consumed by her own worry, her own thoughts that she was not enough for Lexa, because on most days she knows she’s not. But Lexa doesn’t seem to mind, Lexa wants her anyways, and that makes her feel things she really knows she can’t say out loud.

They spend quite a few moments just looking at each other, maybe even thinking the same thing, Clarke doesn’t know. But she does know that if she spends too much longer admiring the pretty face in front of hers, she might kiss her, because she desperately wants too and she doesn’t know if that’s what Lexa wants yet. They haven’t properly kissed with Lexa completely sober, at least not the way that Clarke would like to kiss her.

Lexa seems to sense the change in the air and she’s quick to abandon the tension. She does that often, deflects, it worries Clarke, but she’s in no hurry. She wants what’s best for Lexa and if Lexa doesn’t want to kiss her, then Lexa doesn’t want to kiss her. Even if that fact is a little disappointing, Clarke will just have to accept it. “We should probably get these lights up before dark.” The pretty green eyed girl leans forward slowly and presses a gentle kiss against Clarke’s cheek that makes the blonde girl shiver. A simple kiss such as that, a small press of plump lips that she desperately wants to capture between her own, shouldn’t make her feel like this and it really shouldn’t make her giggle the way that it does, but Lexa has a way of doing things to her that no one else has ever done to her before. She sounds like a love stricken teenager, like she’s still in high school and she’s chasing after the prettiest girl there like everyone else, but the prettiest girl seems to like her too.

Lexa grins widely at the sound and pushes her back so she can stake up boxes of lights in her hands. She has a pretty blush along her cheeks and a grin that lights up all of her features and Clarke thinks she’s probably the most beautiful thing to ever exist. She tries to carry too many boxes and Clarke catches a box as it slips from her arms.

“We’re trying to celebrate Christmas, not destroy it.” Clarke teases, eyes lighting up as Lexa blushes further. She grins in response but says nothing as she rushes toward the door and Clarke can’t help but feel a warmth in her chest as Lexa manages to open the door with full arms and visible excitement.

_Maybe Christmas won’t be so hard this year._

 

 

They spend the rest of the night decorating because they’re terrible at putting lights on the house in a very pretty fashion like their neighbors across the street, who are outside watching them in almost amusement, and maybe even a little bit of smugness since their house looks nicer. They have never had competition before and that sets something off in Clarke that makes her grab plenty of lights away from Lexa. There is no way her neighbors are going to look at her like that, she’s throwing the best Christmas ever for Lexa and they can’t ruin it.

It’s very cold outside, so they spend a lot of time slipping around and trying to find proper extension cords. It’s really not as fun as Clarke had thought it would be, or even remembers it being when she was with her parents. Then again, she had been too small to climb the latters and dig in big boxes, so she only did the fun parts, and even then her mom always fixed it after she was done.

She manages to mess up now too, flinging the wrong colored lights on the bushes. She doesn’t realize it until one of their front bushes lights up green instead of blue on accident and Lexa laughs at her like she’s never before seen someone put Christmas lights up as badly as Clarke can. Clarke bites at her to shut up or she’ll make her, but the threat is empty and Lexa knows that so she just continues to laugh at her, smiling fondly even as they fix the wrongly lit bush.

They have to restart the whole process again after pulling it off because all of the bushes had green lights on them, and Clarke could feel their neighbors grinning smugly rather than see it. They shiver from the cold and laugh at each other’s jokes and gain a couple bruises trying to get the house to light up just right but they eventually get it done.

It’s well after dark by the time they have finished and the lights are all over the place and to any passerby; it would probably cause a headache. She sure it does to her neighbors, who are staring out their window every once in a while and pointing like it’s funny.

Clarke doesn’t like them.

Lexa grins over at her like she’s seeing the best thing in the world and teases further with a “they maybe look organized if you tip your head in one direction a little bit and squint at them,” but Lexa doesn’t really care about that, to her, it’s just about the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Well, aside from Clarke that is, which she mutters quietly to the cold as if saying it out loud might break glass.

It’s enough to make Clarke forget about the neighbors and she spends a good ten minutes just blushing and grinning at the ground. After a little while and a little of teasing they realize they have at least a little bit more to do, because the windows near where Clarke had put the tree has no lights on it and Clarke doesn’t feel like the tree is enough, so Lexa spends some time compromising with other lights until they get the right colors to link along the window. Lexa does it because she says Clarke might break herself, and Clarke decides it best not to fight her. She was too tired and too cold anyways.

They finish again and they step back to admire it again but Clarke can’t take her eyes off of Lexa, whose face is lighting up with each different color and it’s just really nice to look at. She looks beautiful within all the colors and she wonders if Lexa has ever heard someone say that too her.

“It’s funny. We spent all this time trying to make the house pretty but it still doesn’t compare to you in anyway.” Clarke mumbles out, her voice scratchy from all of their teasing and giggling and time in the cold. Her blue eyes are glued to the side of Lexa’s face and the brunette has only just noticed that Clarke hadn’t been admiring their handwork at all.

Lexa feels warm even though she is freezing. “Shut up,” She blushes easily and looks down at her snow covered boots. Clarke can’t help the way her heart slams in her chest as she watches her and reaches out her own cold fingers so they brush against Lexa’s. She looks up from the white ground into pretty blue eyes and her green ones look so soft and gentle and soon Clarke is gripping her hand and pulling her very close because she can’t help it. She is cold and she wants Lexa close to her. She wants to kiss her, but she again, doesn’t know if she can, so instead she settles with molding their bodies together. She is cold, very cold, and instinctively, because it’s the way that Lexa always is with her, Lexa tries to pull her even closer to her, as if that would help warm her when Lexa herself is just as cold.

“Do you want to celebrate Christmas with me?” Clarke asks softly, her voice easy to hear even as the wind picks up. Lexa watches the breeze brush Clarke’s hair around and her eyes follow golden strands as they twist in the wind. Clarke is beautiful as drops of snow melt away in her hair and Lexa wouldn’t know it but Clarke was thinking the same thing about her.

When she meets the blonde’s gaze again she doesn’t expect to see her looking so vulnerable, even if everything she has done up to this point has been vulnerable. She looks so small in this moment as if Lexa would ever want to spend Christmas with anyone else. Why would she if she has the best person to spend it with now?

Instead of answering with words, Lexa just pushes forward and presses her lips against Clarke’s. The kiss is gentle and sweet and Lexa listens as the girl before her hums in acknowledgement to the action.

Just like most of their kisses have been, this one ends quickly, only a brief press of lips to express emotions that Lexa can never put into words. She caress Clarke’s cheek once they part enough and whispers, with a puff of air to be seen in the cold, “There’s no one else I would rather spend it with then you.” And that makes Clarke smile wide enough that Lexa’s own smile responds to it.

Lexa isn’t sure if Clarke is okay with what she says, Lexa isn’t sure if Clarke is okay with the pace of things, but Lexa rather likes what is happening. Even when she gets scared, even when her chest hurts and aches with her feelings and the word circles through her brain like a nuisance, she likes it. She likes being close to the blonde girl. She likes holding her and kissing her and feeling her melt into all of her touches. She doesn’t know if it’s enough for Clarke, but it’s all Lexa can give right now, though she hopes that won’t be the case soon because she wants to make Clarke happy and she can’t think of a better way to do that then to tell Clarke that she loves her.

She still doesn’t know if she can actually say that.

Clarke kisses her again, just as gentle as all of their other kisses have been these last few weeks, just as fast, and watches the blush as it rushes across Lexa’s cheekbones. She traces it with her cold fingers and giggles as Lexa shivers to her touch. Maybe the action is a little from the cold, but she’s sure the warm feeling running through her entire body has nothing at all to do with the weather.

“It’s time to do the tree now,” Clarke says brightly, tugging Lexa back toward the house where they are sure to get warm again.

“Can we eat first, I’m starving. You made this take forever.” Lexa teases, squeezing the palm of the girl’s hand lightly as their fingers tangle together. Clarke moves her thumb back and forth across her skin and it’s so nice that Lexa forgets about worrying about all of the things she normally worries about when it comes to Clarke.

Clarke shoves the door open. She looks at Lexa bewildered but her eyes twinkle and the corners of her mouth turn up into a tiny grin that Lexa wants to kiss and kiss and kiss until her lips are bruised and puffy and ache from all of her kisses. She doesn’t know if Clarke wants to kiss her like that, but Lexa thinks maybe she should ask because she doesn’t know if she can wait much longer to be kissed like that again by Clarke Griffin.

“I made it take forever?” the blonde pretends to be offended. She locks the door, but keeps Lexa’s cold palm in her own for as long as the brunette will let her. “If I’m correct you’re the one that insisted on decorating the whole fucking yard.” She responds finally pulling Lexa with her as she rummages through the kitchen for some hot chocolate.

“You’re the one that kept putting green lights on _green_ bushes.” Lexa teases further, watching Clarke’s movements with her eyes.

She really is very beautiful. Even with her nose pink from the cold and her hair slightly damp from the snow. She’s the prettiest sight ever and Lexa wants to kiss her, she wants to kiss her until she forgets that kissing Clarke could hurt her because she’s not ready to give Clarke everything she needs yet, because the feeling in her chest is so overwhelming and big and scary and she just wants to be enough and confident when she finally tells her that she loves her for the first time.

She really, really wants to kiss her.

“They are almost white thank you very much.” The blonde responds wittily and grins at the brunette who’s already managing a smile of her own and a small blush at her wayward thoughts. “You want cinnamon don’t you?” A blonde eyebrow shoots up as she reaches for the item and Lexa just shrugs as her reply.

Of course Clarke knows that she wants cinnamon.

Clarke finally lets go of her hand so Lexa can cook dinner, and they chat over Christmas things that they _must_ do this year, or that’s what Lexa says anyways. A list of movies, the best houses to light look at, the tree lighting they do in the small town they both grew up in. It’s small and simple, just the way they both like it. They’d much rather go there then to some big center with lots of people, lots of noise, and pointless anxiety.

When they’re done eating, Lexa is probably more excited to decorate the tree then any seven year old child Clarke had ever seen. But she’s strict about it. Everything has a place apparently, and Clarke is the one that ends up mostly just watching as Lexa carefully places ornament after ornament on the branches. Lexa looks so happy that Clarke doesn’t mind at all when Lexa slaps her hand away when she tries to adjust a bended fake branch.

By the time Lexa is done its ten o’clock and Clarke has to be up early to start shooting for her show. But Lexa looks at her like she’s not quite done yet and Clarke doesn’t care how tired she’s going to be in the morning. “Are you done with Christmas stuff now because-”

“What do you want to do?” Clarke mutters as if defeated and the smile on Lexa’s face is reward enough. She willingly lets the girl drag her into Clarke’s bedroom as she switches on the television. Clarke is glad that she can at least make Lexa happy with these small gestures. She hopes its enough for Lexa because Clarke never wants to spend Christmas with anyone else.

They finish two and a half Christmas classics before Lexa falls asleep and Clarke is left to watch her. She still sleeps like she isn’t alive at all and Clarke always feels a little concerned about it so she scoots down under the covers and snuggles against the warm body beside her which hums in response and wraps around her just the same. It makes the blonde smile as she nuzzles the crook of the girl’s neck and is able to listen to her breathing. It’s comforting and Clarke spends most of the night listening and tracing soft skin beneath her fingertips until she can’t keep her eyes open anymore.

Most nights end this way, wrapped up against each other, warm and quiet. It’s like a cocoon from the outside world, and for a moment, Clarke doesn’t have to worry about anything but making the smile on Lexa’s face grow. She doesn’t know how long Lexa will let her fall asleep like this, but she has hope that it’s going to be for a long time.

 

 

The next week follows a pattern of entirely too Christmassy themed things. They leave the house entirely too much for Clarke’s liking, but Lexa seems happy with their activities so she doesn’t complain about it as the girl dances around with the excitement of a small child. She wonders sometimes what Christmas was like for Lexa when she was small and so very alone. She wonders if she likes Christmas so much because it was the only time that she didn’t feel alone? She remembers Lexa telling her some things about the holiday season, good memories for the most part. She isn’t quite sure how much because Lexa isn’t really one to talk about herself, but Clarke thinks that maybe Christmas is the only time of year Lexa can remember anything happy from her childhood.

These thoughts make Clarke sad even though her own Christmas holiday has been tainted by bad memories. She had good memories from all parts of her childhood at least; Lexa didn’t really have that at all. They were both Orphans in a way, even though Lexa had a dad somewhere, but he wasn’t really a dad at all. He could be dead for all Clarke knew. Lexa hadn’t seen him since she was seven, and he was a heavy drug addict at the time. He could be dead.

Clarke kind of hopes not, at least for Lexa, even if Lexa doesn’t really care, even though Lexa hasn’t seen or heard from him in years, she still hopes he’s at least alive, and maybe he at least thinks of his daughter this time of year. Clarke doesn’t know how anyone could ever leave Lexa, cute little Lexa… The desire to give her an amazing Christmas seems to grow within Clarke and she spends a lot of time thinking how she can make it even better.

She minds less when Lexa drags her to new places after that.

She buys Lexa three different expensive items before the week is up and she’s sure she’ll find more before Christmas actually comes. She even buys more wrapping paper, because if they’re going to have a few presents under the tree they should probably have more wrapping paper, and she leans it against the wall near the tree so Lexa can use it whenever she wants. She doesn’t care if Lexa uses it at all really. She doesn’t need a gift, Lexa being happy and with Clarke is really gift enough for the blonde.

Clarke’s happy she didn’t hide the wrapped presents when Lexa gets home because she’s all too excited at the sight of them under the tree. She spends a long time inspecting them thoroughly when she gets home from classes and Clarke spends a good five minutes just laughing at her. “You’re worse than Anya’s little brother and he’s six.” Clarke grins widely as Lexa rolls green orbs at her and slumps into the couch cushion next to her because she has to pretend to pout.

It’s adorable and Clarke can feel her heartbeat in her ears as she stares after that bottom lip.

“I’ve got stuff for you too you know, and you’re going to tell me you’re not even the slightest bit excited about that?” Lexa’s pout seems to grow, but a part of Clarke definitely knows it’s not a real pout. She even goes as far to cross her arms along her chest because apparently the pout wasn’t enough in and of itself and it’s the most adorable thing Clarke has ever seen her do. She looks beautiful, sitting there with her coat still on and a beanie still around her ears and her nose still pink form the cold, pouting and Clarke’s smile is incapable of escaping as she stares after her.

She isn’t sure why she’s feeling so brave in the next few moments, but the fact of the matter is that she was, so she does what she does when she’s brave. “The only thing I’m excited for.” Clarke manages to mumble and she crawls across the couch until she straddles over Lexa’s lap, watching the blush creep up her neck before it enters her cheeks.

Clarke can see her eyes dilate as she climbs on top of her, and it’s enough to keep Clarke brave because Clarke really wants to be close like this, to make a move and know it’s the right one because Clarke wants to kiss her, Clarke wants to feel her breathe into her mouth and sigh when she presses on the right spots. She wants to hear her moan and see her squirm underneath her fingertips. Clarke wants her and she wants Lexa to know that.

She’ll have to be careful though, she has plans, she can’t get carried away.

Her breath hitches as Clarke’s fingers tangle in her hair and pull on the back of her neck so she leans forward upward into her. The action is bold and Clarke has no idea if she’s making the right decisions right now, but it still feels right as Lexa stares at her with pretty green eyes.

“is spending Christmas with you.” The blonde finally finishes in a whisper above plump pink lips that part slightly before they seal back together. She watches as green orbs flicker down to Clarke’s lips and she wonders if Lexa wants her as badly as Clarke does. She wonders if Lexa thinks about the same things that Clarke does when her fingers slip below the waistline of her own jeans because she aches and she can’t stop aching, not even after she takes care of herself. She wonders if Lexa has ever done that to thoughts of her, making noises that she thought about coaxing from her but never had the courage of doing so.

Clarke’s heart had started pounding so hard in her ears she was sure she wouldn’t be able to hear Lexa if she were to say anything at all.

The brunette’s hands ball into fists at her sides but Clarke is feeling even braver then she had been before with thoughts of a desperate Lexa in her head that she kind of wants that to become a reality, just to see. So she slowly removes her own fingers from Lexa’s hair and grips both her wrists gently to bring them around her waist. She doesn’t let her gaze fall from Lexa’s face because she needs to keep her eyes on her mouth just in case the green eyed girl has something to say. Clarke knows she won’t hear it if she does, her heart beat is too loud and she’s far too nervous, so she needs to look.

The brunette girl’s arms lock around her but they don’t move and Clarke spends a long time watching the curve of  pretty eyebrows and listening to the girl’s increased breathing as she traces her fingers along her neck. She sees the blush on her cheeks and feels the way the girl shivers under her and wonders if Lexa is thinking about the same things Clarke is thinking about.

Sheets and naked skin and kisses.

She glides a palm up Lexa’s arm and into her hair again to feel the silky strands around her fingertips. She pushes the beanie off of her head and onto the back of the couch where it falls and they both don’t seem to care about it much further. She lets her fingers graze along the girl’s jawline slowly, watching as it makes Lexa shiver, and watching that shiver travel through her until Clarke swears she can feel it in herself.

The girl below her looks afraid, of course she is, Clarke’s afraid, but she also knows that she doesn’t really need to be and wants Lexa to realize that too, so she moves slow as she caresses skin and watches the way it creates goose-bumps on the girl’s flesh.

Clarke _loves_ the way Lexa reacts to her. She was so sweet and soft and the blonde suddenly finds herself wondering if the brunette has always been this obvious in her attraction or if this is just a recent development of their changing relationship. Her hands are balled up against her back. Her eyes are big and wide and scared but hungry at the same time dilating until the green is being swallowed up by the black. She looks like a storm that Clarke can barely manage to look away from. Her lips part as Clarke brushes her thumb along her cheekbone and Clarke watches her like she’s the most beautiful piece of art she has ever seen.

The air is still in the room, as if it’s afraid to move itself. It’s another thread, stringing out and stringing out until it snaps but Clarke has no idea what it will take to snap it. She can hear Lexa breathe, but all she can hear from herself is the pound of her heart in her ribcage. It’s loud and almost painful but Clarke’s used to feelings like that, it’s always felt this way around Lexa. She just really wants to kiss her, but she doesn’t know if Lexa is ready for the kind of kiss Clarke wants to share with her again. The all-consuming, breathtaking, never want to stop kind of kisses that Clarke wants to give her. The ones full of passion and need and want and _love_. She looks too afraid of the situation, and Clarke doesn’t want to push her, so she just sits for a while, caressing skin and silky brown hair until the girl in front of her decides she wants to move. Until the girl in front of her says it’s okay. Clarke sits there completely still; touching Lexa the way that she knows Lexa is okay with her touching, even if she wants so much more… She wants Lexa to want more too.

Lexa’s palms slowly flatten from behind her back and press very lightly against her, as if to hold her in her place on the girl’s lap, but also as if she’s unsure of what to do with them. Clarke feels warmth in the small action, even if it isn’t much, and watches the girl in front of her try to come to terms with what she wants.

Clarke hopes she wants her.

The hands on her back press more firmly, as if to signify something and Clarke thinks she gets it and she hopes she’s not wrong as she pushes forward. She hopes she’s not wrong when her lips brush against the girl’s skin on her jawline and she gently caresses sweet skin between her lips and the tip of her tongue because she has to taste her, because her skin tastes like rain and Lexa and Clarke _loves_ it.

There’s a small sigh that escapes the girl below her and then she’s turning her head just right until their lips meet and Clarke feels like the entire world melts away with the simple action. Clarke feels like the twist of her belly and the pounding of her heart will finally create something so catastrophic that there will be no way that she can survive it because Lexa is kissing her, gentle and rough and she tastes so good and perfect and Clarke is lost in it. A tingle starts its place in Clarke’s heart and flips her belly because this kiss is different than the quick little ones they’ve been sharing for the past few weeks. It’s like the ones from that night but this time firmer, more sure, sober. She can feel it in the way Lexa’s lip caress her bottom one and the girl’s palms press firmly into her back making her fall forward almost sloppily.

The stillness that had been in the air a moment ago seemed to of snapped like a thread the moment their lips meant. Clarke would compare it to a volcano erupting but that felt too dramatic, even if she thought it was accurate.

Something in Clarke that was being patient seemed to of vanished and now her fingers tangled in silky brown curls so tightly and desperately that she was sure Lexa was going to squeak out with pain. She pressed against the girl below her more firmly, sealing her lips in a firm and hard kiss that made Lexa’s fingers curl slightly against her back and her body ached and burned and tingled to every touch and press of Lexa’s lips on her own. She felt her heart leaping from her chest, maybe into Lexa’s and she hoped Lexa wouldn’t give it back because this is exactly where she wants to be. Against Lexa with her lips bruising because they are kissing so hard, sucking the air from each other’s lungs because they’d much rather do this then ever breath again. She could feel the movement of her lips in every part of her body, spreading and burning until Clarke was consumed with it and could not thinking of anything other than Lexa, Lexa, Lexa.

She slipped her tongue along a plump bottom lip and shivered to the small sound that escaped from Lexa throat and vibrated through her mouth. She swallowed the noise and shivered to the feel of it, completely consumed of thoughts of Lexa making more noises, louder noises, noises Clarke would have to remember just to fall asleep at night. She had pride in the way the brunette girl seemed to shake against her with the feelings that were being passed between them.

 This feeling, how does Clarke even describe it? Kissing has never, ever felt this way, not one time in Clarke’s life. Kissing Lexa is like waking up after a long and restful sleep but it’s also like getting on a rollercoaster for the first time and riding in the front seat. It’s addictive and Clarke can feel the adrenaline coursing through her as Lexa sucks in a deep breath once their lips part only a moment before she’s brushing her nose along her own and capturing her lips again. Breathing Clarke’s air into her own lungs. She makes a another noise as Clarke’s tongue brushes her bottom lip again and again and then Clarke bites because she wonders what that will do and it makes the girl gasp into her mouth and it’s probably the most beautiful sound Clarke has ever heard.

She whimpers when Clarke’s tongue dips into the heat of her mouth, and shakes as Clarke fingers brush against her collarbone, while the other stays wrapped in her hair tightly, keeping their lips molded together because Clarke thinks she might die if they part. Clarke can feel her respond to every brush of skin, every kiss, every breathe; she is addicted to the way that Lexa feels like this, the way she tastes like rain and hot chocolate with too much cinnamon in it and Lexa. Clarke never wants to part, she doesn’t want to do anything else but this for the rest of her life and she wonders why the hell she had waited so long to kiss the girl in the first place.

Lexa’s warm fingers climb up her skin, under the sweater that Clarke’s wearing and she swears she can feel the touch _everywhere_. She aches for something, she burns for it but she’s isn’t quite sure what that is anymore and hums slightly as Lexa’s fingers trail across her ribs and back. Their mouths are molded together, only breaking apart for a second to breathe before they are kissing again, and it’s fast and so wonderful, and their tongues brush together again and again and it feels so fucking wonderful Clarke can hardly think of anything at all but this. Their kisses are always gentle and sweet because Clarke doesn’t think Lexa knows how to kiss any other way, and honestly, Clarke wouldn’t want her too.

She has never been kissed like this before. Lexa makes Clarke feel beautiful with the way that she holds her and caresses her and _wants_ her. Clarke breathes her in like she’s new perfume and she can’t get enough, nipping at her bottom lip when they part to breathe again, just so they can consume and fall and lose themselves in the taste of each other again and again.

Lexa kisses Clarke like she has never been kissed before; like she has never had anyone care about how they kissed her before. Lexa kissed like she was dying and Clarke in some weird way thought that, that was beautiful.

It’s actually Clarke’s hips that jerk forward first, completely on accident because Lexa’s fingers brush against a particular spot on her hipbone that’s extra sensitive and it makes a noise that Clarke had never made before, get stuck in her throat until it’s forced out and swallowed by the mouth against her own. By the tongue sweeping across the roof of her mouth and making her ache and ache and ache like she might die if Lexa ever stops kissing her and touching her, making her feel this way.

It’s Lexa soft grin that she can feel that makes Clarke realize that the noise had come from herself and then Lexa’s brushing the spot again and Clarke sucks in a breath like her touch can single handedly create fire itself and in a sense that’s exactly what it feels like it does. Clarke knows of this spot, but she’s never had anyone touch it like this, take their time, brush it with their fingertips like it was special and Clarke can’t stop _shaking_.

There’s a quirk to Lexa’s cute eyebrow when Clarke parts from her a moment because she can’t breathe. She really can’t, she’s overwhelmed with sensation, no matter how simple, and her heart is pounding so hard it hurts and her throat is dry and her lips ache and are sore and puffy and her whole body is so, so warm. She breathes as if to gain some kind of grip, even though that was probably impossible when a girl like Lexa was still below her, smirking at her like she had just won some kind of sexy game. In a sense she kind of had, Clarke has never made a noise like that for anyone. Not ever.

“What was that?” Lexa quips, her voice is hoarse and lost but so, so gentle and light all at the same time as her fingers caress over that spot on Clarke’s hipbone until she’s absolutely _shaking_ and she cannot stop. Chapped plump lips brush against her ear and Lexa’s voice rushes out in a seductive low tone as she says “I don’t think I heard you properly.” While her fingers lightly graze that spot on her skin and Clarke whimpers because she can’t help it. She can’t stop it as she feels it travel through her, and Lexa is grinning against her ear and then her neck as her lips and teeth start to nip at her skin and Clarke is on fire.

She has never felt this way, not with anyone.

“Lex,” She croaks. Her voice is hoarse and breathy and its obvious how turned on she is, it’s obvious. Her hips keep moving, she’s sure her face is flushed, and her heart just seems to pound and pound in her chest like it can’t get enough. Her voice is so very lost, even to her. She’s never heard it sound like that before; she’s never been with anyone that could make her sound like that. Something about Lexa is so different, so all-consuming and beautiful. She’s truly and honestly amazing and Clarke _loves_ her.

Clarke is burning and aching and now is not really the time for this because she did have something planned but she got so caught up, so wrapped up in the beauty of the girl below her, that caresses her skin and kisses her neck like she is the most beautiful and delicate person she has ever touched.

Clarke hopes Lexa thinks of her like that.

“Hmm?” Lexa mutters against her skin, running smooth lips up and down the column of her neck and along her jaw, her tongue brushing her skin and then her teeth and then her tongue and it’s too much but not enough all at the same time. Clarke feels like she might die and another noise leaves her throat as teeth nip right under her jawline and fingers press to her hip bone, grazing firmly but lightly all at the same time and she can feel it everywhere, she can feel it in her core, twisting her belly up until she is breathing hoarse and harsh against Lexa’s ear. She is wet, she can feel it as her hips tip forward, she is wet and needy and she might die from it.

How is Clarke supposed to think of anything else when she’s doing that? Clarke’s hips jerk again as Lexa nips at a spot right under her ear that no one’s ever touched before, and with a soft stroke of the brunettes thumb against skin another sound escapes Clarke before she can stop it, another needy whimper, and she can feel the warmth shoot through her, between her thighs, and she’s afraid Lexa is going to notice, going to find it to be too much because it must be. Clarke is so wet, so wanting, complete putty to the hands that are on her and there isn’t a thing she can do to stop it.

She had plans this evening, she didn’t mean to do this, but she just couldn’t stop now.

She doesn’t even understand it, how her body could react this way to someone. How she could be so hungry for someone’s touch. But Lexa wasn’t just any someone; Lexa was someone she loved, someone she’s ached for, for a long time. Perhaps it’s not completely incomprehensible, but it still seems so… new. It’s so different as sounds leave Clarke’s throat and Lexa coaxes them out one after another, smirking against her skin each and every time like she had just won the lottery because Clarke Griffin doesn’t make sounds, not like this.

What was Lexa doing to her?

Clarke knows Lexa has sucked a few bruises into her neck, she knows because she’s finding each spot that Clarke can’t hold back a whimper and she works on it until Clarke begs her to stop and her hands are so desperately tugging on her air to try and get her too because she doesn’t know how much more of this she can take. It’s too much, but it’s not enough and Clarke has no idea what to do.

She had plans before this. She had plans, she needs to remember them. She needs to slow things down because she had plans. _Very important plans today._

“The tree lighting,” Clarke moans as Lexa starts darkening up the mark behind her ear and her hand as brushing along her lower stomach, near the buttons on her jeans and Clarke doesn’t know if stopping her will kill her or if letting her continue will. Her voice even cracks as she says the words and she cannot believe that she is this worked up. Perhaps it’s just the building tension that’s been there for ages, but Clarke somehow thinks that that’s not completely the case. Clarke hates that she sounds like that, but knows that Lexa has seen many sides of her vulnerability, and this was new, but at the same time, perhaps it wasn’t, not really.

“You want to go?” Lexa asks as she pulls her beautiful mouth away from Clarke’s bruising skin to meet blue eyes that Clarke’s sure fully emanate protest to that removal. Clarke’s body is shouting at her to get Lexa to continue, the rubbing on her lower belly twisting up her thoughts and jumbling her goals so she just stares at the girl in front of her trying to remember what the hell she had said to get Lexa to stop.

But they have to go now if they want to make the tree lighting and Clarke remembers that because the tree lighting is in her hometown and that’s about an hour away, and they need to go there tonight more than ever because Clarke needs to show Lexa something. Clarke didn’t have intentions of seducing or being seduced into bed tonight, she had other plans, ones that made her nervous. They couldn’t be postponed, even if their current situation is worth postponing anything for. Even if Clarke is aching and burning and so, so wet that she can hardly stand it.

“I thought we could go and that you could…” Clarke sucks in a much needed breathe because her voice is still so hoarse and heavy and _lost_. She bites her lip, and is well aware of the way dilated green orbs watch the action. Another brush of Lexa’s thumb along her hipbone makes her shiver. She clears her throat again as if the action will give her some courage, but she knows nothing will. “I thought you could meet my parents after.” Clarke feels embarrassed to say it like that. It’s not like Lexa could actually meet them, and of course Lexa obviously knows that, but saying it any other way just didn’t feel right, even if this way scared Lexa more.

Dead or alive they were still her parents and she wants Lexa to meet them.

But nothing seems to scare Lexa right now, as she stares at Clarke’s puffy mouth and stroked the bottom of her stomach. “Okay,” Lexa says simply and easily, as if she would have no reason to think it over. It shocks Clarke and for a few silent moments she can only stare at the girl in front of her with amazement. “You want to go now or…?” Lexa mumbles quietly, her own confidence was giving Clarke a little bit as well, and the grip on her hip grew tighter as Lexa brushed her lips along Clarke’s jawline again, and then traced the bruising she had caused earlier, just to make sure they’d stay.

Something about Lexa marking her makes the burning in Clarke’s body so much worse.

She could feel her heart flutter and her own hands grip Lexa tighter with each stroke of Lexa’s tongue against her skin. It wasn’t fair that Lexa was so good with her mouth. Clarke could barely think when she was doing that. “Yes, we have to go now.” Clarke says croakily, unwillingly pushing herself up from Lexa and creating some distance that she very much wishes she could close again. She knew how wet she was, she could feel it, her underwear was ruined there was no doubt about that but she didn’t think about how Lexa was feeling as she stood up.

She didn’t think about it until she looked at her, sitting there with her hands balled together at her knees and her eyes so wide and barely green. She wondered if Lexa ached between her legs the same way that Clarke was. All Lexa had to say was, “we don’t have to go to the tree lighting,” and Clarke knew that she was.

She would love to skip the tree lighting and just wrap herself in Lexa. She’d love to take Lexa to her bed, leave her door open because that feels right, and make Lexa come so many times she’ll forget her own reality. She wants too. The thought makes her ache even more, makes her body shudder and a heat twist her stomach. But if she does they’ll miss more than the tree lighting and Clarke doesn’t know if she has the courage to ask again.

So she says, “We have to go.” And Lexa seems to understand well enough. She stands than, looking a little shaky as barely green eyes examine the curves of Clarke in a way that almost makes the blonde change her mind. She doesn’t know how long this window of opportunity will be open; she doesn’t know if it will close the moment they leave the house. She hopes not, she hopes Lexa will let her touch and consume and hold.

She hopes.

 

 

***

 

Lexa didn’t know it was possible to ever ache worse than she normally had for Clarke. She had no idea that it could be this bad. It was uncomfortably damp between her legs as Clarke drove down street after street, Christmas lights swishing past her field of vision all along the way. She could barely focus on each house livening up each neighborhood because all she could think about was the sounds that Clarke was making in her ear. All she could think about was the sounds she has yet to hear from Clarke, since she now knows that she can coax them out of her.

Lexa wonders if Clarke had ever made any sounds like that with Raven… she doesn’t like the thought much because it produces an image she’d much rather never see again in her head, but she’s still curious, just curious.

Clarke looks far too focused as she drives. Her eyebrows are knitted together and her grip is so tight on the steering wheel Lexa fears it might pop. Because of this, because she’s sure Clarke is overthinking where they’re about to go, Lexa reaches over and pries one of Clarke’s palms from the steering wheel, tangling her fingers with Clarke so that their holding hands and Lexa’s heart can pound to the warmth. She can see Clarke slightly relax in her seat, not much, but a little, and the differences makes Lexa feel things.

She looks beautiful, even with worry etched along her features and Lexa can’t really take her eyes off the girl as Clarke’s thumb strokes her skin, gentle and sweet. She likes the feeling it causes in her chest, loves the way Clarke’s eyes seem dazed with her own thoughts. They dazzle and spark as the lights flicker across her face and to Lexa, Clarke looks like heaven. She wonders if Clarke is only thinking of their fast approaching destination, or if Clarke too is thinking of what they would be doing right now if Clarke had said yes to skipping the tree lighting.

Lexa wishes she had said yes, though she knows why she didn’t.

She knows that she had wanted to say yes, but she also knew how hard this must be for her. She knew that this part of Clarke that she was about to see was a part that Clarke never showed anyone, _has_ never shown anyone. She knew this was new, and she wanted Clarke to know that she could trust her. Lexa wasn’t even scared like she had thought she’d be if Clarke were to ask her something like that before. She wasn’t afraid, instead, she felt… _proud_.

Proud that Clarke _could_ trust her with something so vulnerable, proud that Clarke _wanted_ to trust her. Lexa wasn’t the only one in this relationship that had a hard time accepting the feelings circling in her chest. She knew Clarke felt them, knew Clarke was afraid of them, and knew Clarke didn’t want to be hurt by them. She wanted to show Clarke that she wasn’t going to be, she wanted to show herself that she wasn’t going to be either. She wanted Clarke to know that she wasn’t going anywhere, and she wanted in return to know that Clarke was also not going anywhere. Not now and hopefully not for a long time. Not unless Clarke wanted her to go and hopefully, that wouldn’t be the case.

She didn’t think that was going to be the case anyway.

“They always put up lights at the cemetery this time of year, so it won’t be dark.” Clarke says into the quiet, as if Lexa is the one that needs the comfort of her tone. Lexa doesn’t know if Clarke has noticed that Lexa has been looking at her all this time, but she wouldn’t quite mind if she did notice. She liked looking at Clarke, she liked watching her. She was beautiful, even as she thought too much, even as fear surfaced in her eyes and squeezed against her steering wheel. She was still so, so beautiful.

“I’m not scared of the dark.” Lexa offered lightly, knowing Clarke could use the distraction of conversation. She leans the side of her head against the headrest and she lets her eyes trail after different details of Clarke’s face. She really was so pretty. Lexa could stare at her for the rest of her life and be completely satisfied.

“I know you aren’t.” She offered Lexa a weak smile, glancing at her quickly before placing her eyes back on the road. Clarke’s grip in her palm grew a little tight, but it loosened after a few blocks. “We’ll go after the lighting and then we can leave whenever you want okay.”  Clarke squeezes Lexa’s hand out of comfort this time, like she’s the one that needs it more than Clarke before she has to let go of her warm palm to make a quick and sharp turn. The road they drive down now is bare of Christmas lights, and most of the houses are pitch black inside. Lexa wonders where their Christmas spirit is briefly, before she focuses her eyes back on the blonde.

“We should get them something.” Lexa mutters quietly into the dark of the car, reaching out for Clarke’s hand again as the blonde offers it up. Their fingers tangle together once again and Clarke’s thumb starts stroking her skin again, in a slow caressing motion that makes Lexa’s heart flutter lightly in her chest. Clarke always touches her as if she’s the most fragile thing in the world and it makes Lexa feel things every time.

“I told them you would bring flowers.” Clarke smiles at Lexa, but it isn’t really a smile. It’s just a slight upturn of her lips. It doesn’t touch her eyes and honestly, she just looks sad. But of course she is, Lexa’s not actually meeting her parents, Lexa’s meeting gravestones with their names carved into it, and that fact is surely on Clarke’s mind.

Gravestones or not, it is an honor to meet them. Lexa simply cannot wait.

“What was your mom’s favorite kind?” Lexa asks gently, because her voice is somehow incapable of talking to Clarke any other way when she looks like this and she feels Clarke squeeze her hand again as they pull to a stop near a small park that takes up most of the middle of the town. There’s a big unlit tree in the center, but Lexa is too focused on Clarke to really care about it. There are not a lot of people there. The town is really small, but there’s a group surrounding the big green thing just waiting and chatting animatedly amongst themselves like this is something bigger than it is.

For their small town, it is.

“Orchids, she liked orchids.” Clarke finally answers after what feels like a long bout of silence, and then she’s looking at Lexa’s eyes and there’s something in her gaze that the brunette girl can’t really read or name. She’s okay with it though, she knows this is hard for Clarke. This is harder than buying Christmas decoration, which Clarke has never done out of all the time that they have lived together. Clarke’s done a lot of things lately that Clarke wouldn’t normally do, like she’s trying to show Lexa something, and Lexa really is okay with it. She doesn’t know what Clarke’s fully trying to say in the actions, maybe she’s just trying to reassure her the way that Lexa does when Clarke thinks she’s spoken too much about her own feelings, but Lexa can’t be sure of that.

Maybe this is just Clarke’s way of telling her things that can’t be put into words.

Either way, she feels important. “We’ll get her some then.” She kisses Clarke’s knuckles before the blonde opens the driver’s side door and is falling out into a cushion of snow. Lexa follows suit, but she doesn’t want to be far from Clarke, so she crosses behind the car until she’s beside the blonde again and her fingers tangle with the blonde’s once more. She is desperate for her touch, still aching and burning from things they haven’t gotten to do together yet.

It makes Clarke smile as she says “can’t keep your hands off me can you.” And her tone is lighter than it had been before. Her pretty blue eyes are lighting up slightly with her words, watching Lexa’s lips as they pull into a wide grin. It always shocks Lexa that sometimes it’s that easy to make Clarke happy. She always assumes Clarke’s happiness is an elaborate puzzle that she’s going to spend a lifetime figuring out, but then Lexa does something, simple and just out of habit, and Clarke looks at her like all the pieces have already been fit together.

“Nope, you’re just so pretty.”  She breathes into the cold air, and she can see a cloud of breathe form in front of her, it is so cold, but her palm that’s pressed up against Clarke’s is warm, and that’s enough for the brunette.

They both should have brought gloves, but they didn’t. They had hurried out of the door before they changed their minds about skipping the tree lighting, Lexa didn’t even have her beanie that she had come home with. She’s sure it was still sitting on the couch cushion where Clarke had pushed it out of her hair.

Clarke is blushing as she pulls Lexa toward the big tree in the center of the park they were now walking through and they stop beside a small crowd of people who know who they are and offer acknowledging smiles and waves. They offer them back, but Lexa mainly has her eyes on Clarke, watching the way each step she takes seems to make her more and more nervous.

When they finally come to a complete stop in front of the giant unlit green tree, Lexa turns to the blonde until she’s looking at her and she can see the slight signs of water in her blue eyes. She knows Clarke won’t let her tears actually fall, but she wants to comfort her, so she pushes forward until their lips meet in a gentle kiss that definitely isn’t brief like all of the other ones they had been sharing these past few weeks. Lexa isn’t sure if she’ll ever be able to kiss Clarke briefly ever again after their couch adventure, and the way that Clarke seems to respond she thinks that maybe the blonde feels the same way.

Clarke’s free hand wraps around her waist and pulls her close, right up against her and Lexa feels warm and alive and special. She wishes they were home, just for right now so she could show Clarke that she is special too. She wishes they were home so she could deepen their kisses and shed Clarke of her clothes until she was naked and bare in front of her. Lexa’s own free hand was fiddling with the small hairs at the nap of Clarke’s neck as her thoughts were consumed of only her. She imagined the noises again in her head, and wondered just how many different ones Clarke could make.

She had to adjust her footing so she could press her thighs together.

The thought was too much right now, she needs to focus on Clarke’s feelings. She kissed her to comfort her, not seduce her back to their car so they could finish what they had started in the living room earlier. So she pulls her lips from Clarke’s and instead brushes her nose along the blonde’s before resting her head against Clarke’s who’s eyes are still tightly closed, as if she fears opening them. As if she fears Lexa will disappear from her the moment she does.

She is so, so pretty.

Clarke whispers, “We should have stayed home,” and it makes Lexa laugh, like really laugh. Loud and pure and in a way that makes Clarke finally open her eyes until she is smiling so big that it is spreading from ear to ear. It’s the loveliest sight and Lexa finds the tips of her fingers with her free hand tracing the upturn of pretty pink lips.

She wants to kiss her again.

“Are you here to watch the tree lighting or to show off your new relationship Clarke? Because frankly I find this kind of nauseating.” Anya’s smooth voice croons over them all gentle and teasing and it makes Lexa laugh some more. Clarke just tries to pull the brunette girl closer to her, as if she wants to feel the laugh in herself.

Lexa feels warm, and happy… really happy for the first time in a very long time.

“Don’t be jealous.” Clarke shot back, untangling her fingers from Lexa’s so she could wrap bother her arms firmly around Lexa’s waist to keep her pressed up against her as if to prove some kind of point, as if to say “mine” and Lexa liked this new position too much so she didn’t protest it much. She only smiled at Clarke as her heart hurt from pounding so hard in her chest.

It was a beautiful kind of pain.

“They didn’t have the drink you were talking about, the one with extra whip cream or whatever, Oh.” Raven stops beside Anya, hand half hanging out waiting for Anya to take the cup from her hand while the other held another red cup that was presumably her own. She stared at Clarke, and then stared at where Clarke held Lexa and then stared at Lexa with softening eyes and she gave them a smile that wasn’t full of hurt at all and it shocked Lexa a little. It made her blush. It was gentle and warm and Lexa felt like Raven was looking at her in a such an endearing way that it made her want to blush even more so and she wanted to hide behind Clarke, so instead she rested her head on Clarke’s shoulder and buried her nose into the crook of the girl’s neck so she could breathe her in.

_Like peaches and sunshine_ , she thought.

“Raven what happened to your face?” Clarke said sounding stunned and Lexa looked up to examine the dark haired girl again the same way that Clarke was because she hadn’t noticed. She was so embarrassed by the way Clarke held her; by the way their friends seemed to think they were together, and in a sense, they kind of were but Lexa hadn’t really thought of it that way. Maybe it should scare her, but it didn’t, not really.

Raven had a purpling bruise on her right cheek, it didn’t look pretty at all, but Raven herself was very pretty and it didn’t take much from her features. She had obviously tried to hide it with make-up but the bruise was too dark. It looked like someone had knocked their fist right into her face and honestly, it looked painful.

Raven even winced as she ran her fingers over it.

Anya seemed to pipe up with an answer instead though, saying, “She ran into that wall at my apartment, you know that one that I want to take down but the landlord refuses to let me.” Anya rubs her temple as if just speaking of the wall causes her stress, but as Lexa looked at her friend she figured that maybe Anya was actually stressed about something else entirely. She knew the girl pretty well to know when she was lying, and it seemed like a lie to her.

But Raven just nodded like everything Anya said was nothing but the truth.

“You’re a total klutz,” Clarke had muttered finally in response, but Lexa heard something in her voice that said she didn’t really believe the story either and Lexa wondered how much of it really was a story. If Clarke was suspicious perhaps Anya wasn’t telling the truth at all whatsoever.

“I have a fake leg, what do you want from me?” Raven snaps playfully, sipping her drink and shoving her free hand in her coat pocket as Anya finally takes her own cup off of her. Lexa notices that the two have been spending and awful lot of time together and she’s curious as to why, but she doesn’t dare ask because Anya is weird about that kind of thing and the brunette is sure her friend will come to her when she is ready.

She hopes Anya isn’t catching feelings for another girl in a relationship. She had already done so with a few, and she gets her heart broken every time.

_Love_ … seemed good at doing that.

But Lexa brushed those thoughts off because she didn’t want to think like that while Clarke held her so close and firm and made her feel so safe and warm. It wasn’t fair of her to think that way because she was trying to figure out how not to do so anymore. For Clarke’s sake, because she wanted to make Clarke happy and she couldn’t do that if she thought love was the devils gift to the world.

Clarke’s blues watched Raven intently, but eventually, as Lexa buried her cold nose back against her neck, right up against her skin where she had made bruises earlier, Clarke seemed to let it go and caressed Lexa’s lower back like she never wanted to touch anything else.

It made Lexa shudder, and again she briefly wished Clarke had wanted to skip the tree lighting.

 

 

“So Lexa says she’s spending Christmas with you this year?” Raven asks her blonde friend, whose eyes follow the movements of the brunette just mentioned as she animatedly talks to Anya about something obviously important to her. She wonders what she’s saying; she wonders how important it must be. She kind of wants to abandon Raven just to crawl to her, hold her as she speaks, listen to her voice as she lights up with conversation.

Then she’s shaking her head, trying to snap herself out of it because literally, what the hell, she’s so fucking whipped she almost makes herself want to vomit. “Yeah, I bought a tree.” Clarke says simply, shrugging slightly as she looks at the giant green one in front of them, lit up and glittering in the night.

“I don’t think I fully understood how in love you are until just now.” Raven says with a heavy breath, as if she’s shocked it’s even possible. Clarke wouldn’t blame her for thinking that way, after their history together. Clarke’s sure Raven thought that she could never love at all. The thought is sad, and Clarke has been trying to make it up of her, but she’s not sure she can with something like that.

“Are you going to tell me what really happened to your face or are you just going to pretend a wall hit you?” Clarke asked simply, changing the subject so Raven’s gaze was the one averting to the ground. She gripped her arms around herself, as if to protect herself and shook her head. Raven wasn’t going to tell her, Clarke could see it. She wishes she would, she doesn’t completely understand why she won’t, but she has to let her friend come to her on her own terms. It’s not her place to demand information and if Raven isn’t comfortable with giving it, Clarke will just have to accept that.

“It’s not a big deal. Just a fight. Anya’s helping me.” Raven mutters, and she is quiet enough that Clarke knows there is something she isn’t telling her. The blonde doesn’t like it, but she knows she doesn’t have the right to pry, so instead she thinks about Anya a moment and then she’s smirking.

“Thought you said you were done with girls.” Clarke was teasing and it seemed to help Raven’s mood, her chocolate brown eyes rolling skyward as her blonde friend does so. Clarke hoped Raven would come to her with the truth soon, she was someone Clarke cared for deeply, and if someone was hurting her she wanted to know so she could help have her back and protect her.

“It’s not like that.” Raven says, though the blush on her face says differently.

“You like her.” Clarke looks over at the two girls who are chatting happily toward each other and smiles to herself. “I approve of this one, if you ever want to let that thing you’re dating now go.” The blonde encourages, elbowing her ribs slightly making the dark haired girl wince and glare at her.

“You are never nice to him.” Raven protests and it drops the smile from Clarke’s face.

“I don’t like him.” She states simply, and that was enough about that.

It was silent between the two awhile, as their gazes alternated between Anya and Lexa and the pretty lit up tree in front of them. The quiet let Clarke’s thoughts consume her brain briefly, about what Lexa might think when they get to her parents. It’s different talking about it then it is about actually attending the location, actually going and meeting her parents’ gravestones. She doesn’t know how well that’s going to go over with Lexa at all. She knows the girl is brave and sweet and selfless all by herself but this was a new level, one that Clarke has never let anyone enter before.

What if Lexa was scared and Clarke didn’t notice?

And then Raven pulled her from her own insecurities by saying, “I like her.” And Clarke couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in her throat and released into the air because of course Raven does. It caught Lexa’s attention and she could feel those pretty green eyes on her as she grinned at Raven widely, because she knew it.

She knew it, she knew it, she _knew_ it.

Raven just rolled her pretty brown eyes and crossed her arms along her chest like Clarke was the biggest nuisance of her existence. “You are so obvious.” Clarke says chuckling, and turns her head so her blue eyes can meet those of pretty green ones across the space between them. They look a little troubled, but Lexa’s eyes always look like that, so Clarke tries to offer her sweetest and gentlest smile and she can see how it makes Lexa melt. It sends her heart into her mouth and she knows she has no place in teasing Raven about whom she likes when she’s this far gone for a girl she hasn’t even slept with yet.

“You’re one to talk, heart eyes.” Raven snaps back, shoving Clarke slightly so her gaze splits from Lexa’s and she whips her head around to meet rolling brown eyes. She wonders if Raven will ever stop rolling her eyes at her, probably not.

“She’s very pretty.” Clarke says simply, as if that’s argument enough and it’s her turn to cross her arms along her chest almost defiantly.

And then there’s a puff of air by her ear that makes her shiver because there probably won’t ever be a time that it doesn’t make her shiver. “Who’s pretty?” and her heart is back in her mouth again, as she turns her head and her nose brushes along a cold pink one beside her because Lexa had gotten so close to her so fast. Her mouth hovers over Lexa’s and she feels like every puff of air against her lips is the only thing she has to sustain her life.

“You are.” Clarke whispers and then she kisses her because she can, because Lexa has given her that right and permission, at least to do so here, in this place, beside this lit tree and near the comfort of their closest friends. She kisses her and it’s not brief because there isn’t any way that Clarke can ever briefly kiss Lexa Woods ever again.

The brunette girl breathes against her mouth like she can’t get enough air and then her hands are in Clarke’s hair and she’s holding that perfect mouth against her own and it makes Clarke’s head spin so she forgets where they are, so she forgets anything that isn’t Lexa. It’s not like she ever wants to think of anything else anyways.

She can’t even hear Anya’s fake gagging noises as her arms encircle Lexa’s waist and she holds the brunette girl flush against her, the cold barely affecting her now that she’s got the equivalent to happiness in her arms, crushed against her.

Lexa’s tongue is pushing into her mouth and it’s enough to make Clarke shudder against her, she wants to make a noise, one that’s dying in her throat because she knows how embarrassing that would be to do here, but it’s still there, sitting in her throat, wanting to come alive, and that’s more than anyone else has ever done for her.

Lexa seems like she wants to hear that noise because she kisses Clarke like this will be their last. But then the green eyed girl is pulling away from her too soon and she mutters, “I got jealous,” against her mouth and it confuses Clarke until it makes her laugh because who would Lexa have to be jealous of and why would she?

Isn’t it obvious how in love Clarke is at this point?

Clarke wants to ask, but Lexa has this look in her eye that says she won’t answer any questions on the statement so Clarke lets it go, and pecks at her lips four or five times until Raven is shouting at them to get a room because “that’s disgusting,” and “there are more people here than just you two you know.” And it makes them both start to giggle like they just got caught behind the bleachers in high school.

It’s Anya that decides to end the gathering, saying “before I throw up all over my shoes, we’re going home.” And she’s grabbing Raven’s arm to tug her along to their car, though she offers Lexa a wink that makes the brunette flush all the way down her neck and Clarke thinks it’s probably just about the cutest thing she’s ever seen.

They both watch the pair leave and they don’t say anything to each other until the car is finally gone from their sight. Then Lexa is looking at her and she can feel her heart pick up because she doesn’t know if she’s ready for this, if she’s ready to leave and show Lexa this side of her. She knows she had wanted too, she knows she wants to be ready, but she can feel the panic enter her and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to leave.

She wants to have the courage, she really does, but if feels almost impossible as gentle hands encircle her waist and pull her against a warm gentle body. She can feel her heart going and going but she ignores it as she squeezes her eyes shut, just for a second, just for the courage. Lexa’s fingers are in her hair now, pushing blonde locks behind her ear and it feels so nice that she lets her thoughts focus on her touch and it seems to calm her down enough to open her eyes again.

“If you’re not ready, we don’t have to go.” Lexa says gently next to her ear. “Whenever you are, I am here okay.” And she sounds so reassuring that it makes Clarke’s eyes water again and she turns to look at Lexa and it really helps that she doesn’t look scared at all. No, she just looks soft and sweet and secure and Clarke is so in love with her, so completely in love with her.

“I’m ready.” She says simply, like that’s enough, and Lexa only nods her head once to confirm that she heard her. Lexa’s willingness and strength gives Clarke some and she tangles her fingers with the brunette’s again as she leads her back toward where their car is parked and waiting for them. The walk toward it feels like forever but Clarke lets her thumb brush back and forth along smooth skin to keep her calm, and it works just fine because Lexa knows the exact moments she needs to squeeze her hand or offer her one of her small little smiles that she reserves only for Clarke.

They go to a little flower shop in town before the cemetery. There aren’t any orchids, so they just buy the really colorful ones, and Lexa insist that she pay for it even though Clarke already has her card out. They spend a couple minutes going back and forth about it until Lexa gives the cashier her card anyway, and Clarke is left to put her own back in her wallet. She almost wants to laugh at the smug look on Lexa’s face when the clerk finally wraps up the flowers and hands them over to Lexa carefully.

Clarke holds the door open for her and says “proud of yourself?” as she passes and it makes Lexa grin so gently that Clarke can feel it touch every piece of her. She wants to make Lexa grin like that forever, because she looks so soft and happy and Clarke can’t remember a time that she’s ever really seen Lexa look this happy, out of all the years that they have had to know each other, and the few they’ve even had to live together.

It warms a piece of Clarke to know that she’s the one making her that happy, and she feels like the weight of where they are about to go may not be as heavy as she thought it was.

Lexa just responds with, “Yep,” and then she’s getting in the passenger seat again before Clarke can reply. She didn’t have much of one anyway; Lexa has already shocked her enough today to have stolen most of her replies straight from her mouth.

They drive in silence mostly, the smell of the flowers filling up the small space between them. Lexa’s arms are wrapped protectively around the bouquet, as if she lays them in her lap they might get hurt and Clarke thinks its probably one of the cutest things she’s ever seen Lexa do. She doesn’t say anything about it though, she just casts quiet glances and hums a tune lowly every once in a while to fill the silence because it’s almost too quiet, especially for Clarke who always likes a little bit of noise.

She is less nervous as she pulls into the cemetery, though the last time she was here still weighs on her thoughts briefly. She thought of the last thing she told her parents and now here they were, and here was Lexa with flowers like she had said and Clarke almost thought it was too much. But one look at Lexa’s pretty green eyes surveying the scene in front of her and she knew everything was going to be alright.

The brunette shoved the door open after a beat of silence and stepped out into the cold air once again. Clarke had yet to turn the car off, still chilly and enjoying the heat, so Lexa just shut the door and waited as patiently as a person could wait against the side of the car until Clarke finally turned the vehicle off, shoving the keys in her pocket and pulling herself from her seat.

She locked the car and reached out for Lexa’s hand because she didn’t think she could do this without touching her. Lexa seemed to just know, and gripped her tightly as their fingers tangled together once again, in familiar warmth that Clarke was starting to get used too. She liked that she was getting used to it. This was something she never thought she’d get a chance to get used too, and she was sure that she never wanted to know a time that she wasn’t used to it ever again.

She wanted to always be used to Lexa.

Her scent that was full of expensive lotions and perfumes, the color of her eyes when she was happy, the feel of her lips on her own when they were in a public place so everyone could see that Lexa was hers and she was Lexa’s. She wanted to be used to these things with Lexa, she hoped and hoped that this was what Lexa wanted too because she had no real way of knowing what was really going through her head. She hoped that Lexa wanted to be used to her too.

Her feet were moving automatically to their destination, so even as she got distracted by pretty wisps of brown hair and flicker of green eyes she didn’t get lost. And when they had finally stopped amongst a lot of gravestones, and Clarke had finally let her eyes part from Lexa to look down at the two stones she had spent most of high school crying next too, she felt her breathe hitch in her throat and her palm grow tight around Lexa’s hand like she was afraid the brunette girl was actually going to float away in the wind and leave her forever.

Clarke thought that would probably be just her luck and held her hand tighter.

After only a moment of quiet, Lexa is reaching over with her hand that has the bouquet of pretty flowers in it and she’s placing it in Clarke’s free hand. “Here,” Lexa says gently, like she’s afraid of the action and Clarke really isn’t sure what to make of that. “I’m not sure where to put them, I feel like your dad might feel left out if we just place them on your mom’s grave.” And Clarke laughs because it would be like her dad to pout about getting no flowers and her mother getting them all. He would be teasing about it of course, but he would still pout, and it makes her heart ache at the thought because she wishes, she really, really wishes that she and Lexa were holding hands outside of a door right now, instead in front of two gravestones.

Sometimes it’s just not fair.

“Give him the orange ones, orange is his favorite color.” Clarke says quietly, her voice sounding soft and more vulnerable than she’d ever like it too. Lexa doesn’t hesitate after it’s said, to pull the orange flowers from the bouquet, having to part her hand from Clarke’s so she can place them on top of Clarke’s father’s gravestone.

The sight makes Clarke’s heart ache further and a lump in her throat forms that she knows she won’t be able to get rid of for the whole length of time that they spend here. Then Lexa takes the rest of the flowers from Clarke’s other hand and places it next to her mother and she knows she starts to cry because it’s not fair.

Lexa should be meeting them. Not placing flowers on their graves.

Clarke has always been a quiet crier, so Lexa doesn’t even know that she is until she turns back around. When she seems to have adjusted the flowers to her liking and she is turning around to look at Clarke again she doesn’t give her one of those pitiful looks that anyone else would have given her. Of course she doesn’t. This is Lexa, Lexa has never done anything that anyone else would do, not ever. Not with Clarke anyway.

She just stares at her the way that Lexa always stares at her now, like Clarke is precious and special and there aren’t words to describe what she’s thinking, before crossing the small space in-between them and cupping her face in her hands. She brushes her thumbs along Clarke’s cheeks and carries the tears away with each stroke, though it makes the lump in Clarke’s throat worse, it soothes a piece of Clarke that normally can’t be soothed, at least by no one or nothing else but Lexa. The brunette had magic in her touches, Clarke was almost convinced.

Lexa parts her hands from her face to turn back around to look at them and then she says. “You’re mom has a pretty name,” and it makes Clarke squeak out a snort of laughter because Lexa would be a flatterer to her parents. _She would._

“She can’t hear you. You know.” Clarke teases lightly, though her voice cracks but Lexa pretends not to notice that part and just grins over at her like they really are standing outside of a door instead.

“Afraid she’ll like me more than you?” The brunette manages to tease, even if her voice is far too light for laughter and it makes Clarke’s heart stutter in her chest unevenly.

“Oh I know she’ll like you more than me.” Clarke says with finality that would never enter her tone for anyone else. She grabs Lexa’s hand again, lets her fingers tangle with the girl’s again and squeezes the palm gently in her own, feeling the warmth travel through her like Lexa were her very own heater. “I like you more than me.” She finally says after a while and it comes out easily even though Clarke is afraid that Lexa won’t like the statement. But she doesn’t seem to mind and the blonde watches the way it makes her cheeks warm up slightly.

She loves that she can do that, and she really loves that Lexa seems to like it when she says stuff that can make her do that. She grips her hand tightly with twinkling green eyes before she looks back at the stones. Though, Clarke can’t stop looking at her.

“You know what I would tell them, if they were here.” Lexa says softly almost like it’s a secret she’s almost unwilling to share. Green orbs pass between each stone like she were looking at a person and it makes Clarke hold her breathe because she doesn’t know, and she’s afraid to know what Lexa would tell them if she could. What Lexa should be able to tell them, but things just aren’t fair, not for Clarke.

After a moment Clarke realizes Lexa is waiting on her to continue, waiting on her okay, waiting on her alright to mutter such things into the cold air. Like Lexa is afraid to hurt her, or say the wrong thing, afraid that Clarke won’t accept what she has to say and it makes the blonde wonder how nervous Lexa may have been not because of her fear that she lives with daily, but because she wants Clarke to trust her. “What?” Clarke finally says after Lexa doesn’t go on by herself, and then the brunette glances at her a moment as if to search her, as if to make sure she hadn’t heard the question uttered by mistake before staring at the stones again.

“I’d tell them what an honor it is to meet them,” She starts, her voice all gentle and warm and soft. It soothes Clarke enough to loosen her grip on Lexa’s palm, and she only stares after the pretty searching eyes in front of her, watching as they land on each stone, back and forth, like she were actually speaking to them.  “And I’d tell them how much I care about you,” Her voice shakes, so it’s less soft and more scratchy, but Clarke doesn’t notice as her heart pounds in her chest and her eyes water with her words. “And I’d tell them how incredibly beautiful you are, just inside and out.” Lexa smiles slightly, like nothing could ever be more true and Clarke feels as if she may be dreaming, because this is her Lexa, her scared, afraid, alone little Lexa, speaking so proudly of Clarke, right in front of the blonde, like she doesn’t even know that the word fear exists.

Clarke loves her, Clarke is sure she falls deeper the more Lexa talks. She doesn’t know how that’s possible, but she knows she does.

“And I’d thank them for you because you really are just so special to me and probably to them and,” Lexa looks at the ground, like she can’t keep looking at the stones but like she’s too afraid to look at Clarke, and squeezes her palm tightly as her breathe picks up in speed. She seems like she’s going to say something important, but then she must decide against it because she instead says, “I would try to make them cry because that’s how you get all the parents to like you right.”  And now Lexa is smirking at her shoes because she really doesn’t know how to get parents to like her and Clarke knows she doesn’t know because Lexa doesn’t have parents, she’s never really had parents.

Clarke sniffs because Lexa should have had parents, and it’s never fair that she doesn’t either. It’s not fair that Clarke doesn’t get to meet them. That she doesn’t get to tell them of the same things that Lexa has said to her tonight. It’s not fair. She can feel the water in her eyes fall down her cheeks because poor Lexa, who doesn’t have any good memories of her parents like Clarke does and she sniffs again because her nose is stuffy and it makes Lexa look up at her to grin so soft and sweet, like she isn’t troubled at all, and then she’s tugging Clarke so close. She tugs her closer and closer, and Clarke shivers with her as the breeze picks up around them and their bodies press together like they don’t know what it’s like to not be this close. “And then I’d kiss you, right in front of them, so maybe they wouldn’t like me too much.” Lexa finishes like she needs to add something else, with a quiet breathe puffing against Clarke’s lips, the corners of her mouth turning up with a teasing grin as Clarke snorts slightly and Lexa tugs her closer even if that completely impossible to do at this point, because there’s practically no space left between them. She parts her palm from Clarke’s to fit her arms around the girl’s waist until there really is absolutely no room left between them, and Clarke can barely breathe with the closeness. Even after all of the kisses, and the touches, and the looks, and the words, this feels more intimate then any of those other actions could ever be. This was shedding a whole other side for the both of them, looking deeply inside of each other in a way that they had not, and have not let anyone else through all of their years together and apart.

This is what falling in love did, and Clarke just found that beautiful instead of frightening.

Clarke wants to tell her that, wants to spill the words over and over again while she cups Lexa’s face between her palms and kisses her mouth. She wants to say them tell she literally can’t speak anymore because her throat is too parched and dry from the words. She wants to say it until Lexa says it too, but she can’t. She can’t say it right here, right now, in this moment because Clarke can barely speak in general. And she’s already done too much, she’s already pushed her luck too much with Lexa, whom stands here now, in front of her parents, with her body close to her own, looking soft and more vulnerable than Clarke had ever seen her. She can’t say it when the fear is in Lexa’s eyes again, circling like the word in her own head is dying to come out but she _hates_ it. Or maybe that’s what Clarke sees just because she knows how hard it is for Lexa to love. How hard it must be for Lexa to love her.

Looking at Lexa now, and seeing her eyes and feeling her breathe against her mouth, and holding her like this, is enough for now. Is enough for Clarke because even if Lexa is too scared to hear it and Clarke is too scared to say it she knows that they must be feeling the same thing. She knows that they must to be in a moment like this together and be breathing each other in like they both never ever want to know what it’s like to be apart because they feel the same way.

So she settles on another reply. Saying instead “they would love you,” instead of Clarke saying the words herself, even though _“I love you”_ chants in her head like it has some incessant need to be said out loud, be said to the girl in front of her. And Clarke didn’t really mean to say that word in particular, she thought maybe she should have settled on something else and just said _“like”_ or _“approve”_ but that wouldn’t have felt like enough and Lexa needs to know that she is loved, and would be loved by people that are not here if they were.

Regardless, that word makes Lexa flinch, like she’s being hit in the face with a snowball. It makes her flinch like Clarke had said the three little words to her anyway and it almost makes the blonde pout in her place against the girl’s body. But then her features are schooling and softening and a gentle smile crosses her pretty lips until she’s resting her temple against Clarke’s and she whispers, “I hope so,” and it makes Clarke’s heart pound very, very fast until Lexa is kissing her in front of her parents and Clarke is sure, that bringing her was the right decision. Bringing her here and letting her see this part of her was something she would never regret.

“I hope so,” rang through Clarke’s head like a bell, and she wondered if maybe Lexa wouldn’t be as opposed to hearing Clarke tell her that she loved her after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was way longer, but its soooo long that I decided to split it up so this story will be 7 chapters instead of 6.


	6. I'll Want You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is honestly very, very smutty. As it says in the tags "Explicit Sexual Content" for a reason (and there will be more smut after this chapter as well), but I'd thought I'd say so here so no one can yell at me for it.
> 
> That being said, there are really important stuff that happens in this chapter so maybe skim through the smutty parts instead of just skipping the chapter.
> 
> (Though I'm not sure why you would be here and expect no smut.)

There wasn’t much for silence on their way home. Clarke had started with the radio the moment they had turned the car on, and livened up the hour long car ride the entire time. Sometimes they’d turn it low, just to talk about something small, like what dinner was going to be tomorrow and whose turn it was to do the laundry, but most of the ride was filled with random singing, and glances full of something that Clarke wouldn’t be able name if you asked.

They had shared enough emotionally at the cemetery and the brunette seemed to understand that Clarke just needed something else right now. They both have never been much for talking anyways about the way they feel, so they go through the time doing the things they are good at. Brushing fingertips and mumble lyrics under their breath, Lexa more quietly than Clarke because she likes to listen to Clarke sing and the blonde knows that.

It makes her heart pound every time she thinks about Lexa, just listening to the sound of her voice.

When Clarke did finally turn into the driveway of their home Lexa gushed about the lights they had managed to hang up like it was her first time seeing them and Clarke couldn’t stop herself from laughing about it. “You live her Lexa,” she says which earned her a pretty green eyed glare from the girl beside her as they exited the car.

She teased by saying “You’re so easy to please,” and Lexa just smacked her arm lightly and told her it was better than being a Grinch, which just made Clarke laugh more.

The heaviness of the time they had shared together before seemed to wither away and though Clarke still ached with her love for the brunette, she felt safe in having Lexa know her in this new way. She felt warm at the thought of Lexa seeing the layers of her that she has and still wanting to be around her. It really shouldn’t surprise the blonde that she’s still here. Lexa has never run from her. Clarke just isn’t used to feeling important to somebody, even if she has been important to Lexa for a long time. She’s never felt like she was worth that importance anyway.

They joked easily about stuff as they walked up the small hill to their front door. They teased each other in the ways that they have always been good at. It wasn’t until they got to the front door and Lexa had started opening it with her own keys that Clarke started to ponder if the figurative door that they had left open on their way out to the tree lighting was still open as they were coming back. She wondered if Lexa might still want too, even after everything they’ve done and said this very night, or if it would be too much and Lexa would be just too tired.

It was verging on ten thirty, and Lexa had that early class, that one she hates. Clarke doesn’t remember what the name of the class was, doesn’t even really care what it’s about; she just knows that Lexa was always grumbling about it. She didn’t mind that she did so though; she found it cute, though she did tease her about being a grump in the mornings plenty of times for Lexa to think otherwise.

Clarke was pulled from her thoughts when Lexa finally pushed the door open, pulling her key out of the lock to dangle with the rest as she entered the door and tossed them onto the counter. Clarke watched her carefully; hovering in the doorway like the air in the room itself had stayed exactly the way they had left it. She stayed in her place, staring at the girl like maybe she could read Lexa’s mind if she just looked long enough. She thought maybe it was working when she heard the way Lexa sucked in a deep breathe when her eyes landed on the couch, like she just finally realized where they were again, all alone without any interruptions now.

_Did she still want too?_

Clarke didn’t want to push her, and the way that Lexa had begun to fidget told her that she was probably going to make herself crazy fretting about the situation, so Clarke just simply walked by her because she didn’t want Lexa to worry about anything. She walked by her like she wasn’t even at all thinking of the way Lexa would look, sprawled out on her bed, naked and wet and beautiful. She walked by her like she had no intentions of peeling her clothes off and guiding her to her room to have her way with her until the early morning sun was peeking through her dark blue curtains.

But Lexa didn’t seem to like this nonchalance, and gripped Clarke’s wrist, not tightly, but tight enough to get the blonde to stop and look at her. Those green eyes were filled with an emotion far more complicated than the blonde had expected to see, since all she could really think about was getting the brunette naked. Her thoughts were lustful, completely simple in the actions she wanted to take. But Lexa was never uncomplicated, and she looked almost torn between some unspoken decisions she was trying to make in her head. It made Clarke unease as she wanted Lexa to always trust her and feel safe with her. She goes to tell her that, to dismiss the lustful thoughts in her head to ease the worry she sees in green orbs but than Lexa is speaking before she gets the chance. “Do you want to take a shower Clarke?” Her voice comes out all stiff and shaky, like she’s unsure of herself though it actually makes Clarke’s heart jump into her mouth because… _does she want too?_

Clarke really, really wants too. Despite the amount of vulnerability she has shown today, and the energy draining time at the cemetery, she still really, really wants too. But Lexa still looks at her as if the words had left her mouth unwillingly and Clarke never wants to do anything that could make the brunette girl uncomfortable. She wants her to be sure about wanting too.

She eventually turns her entire body slowly toward Lexa, so she can face her, like she’s unsure if she actually heard her say what she had said or if maybe she had made it up herself. She almost thinks it’s possible that her head, swimming with lust, could make her hear something Lexa wouldn’t say because she can still feel the dampness between her legs, still ever present and consistent. Every time it seemed like the mood was washing away from her, she’d remember something Lexa had done on that couch, she’d remember the way that she had breathed into her ear when she had made those noises that she couldn’t contain, no matter how hard she had tried and her belly would twist all over again just at the thought of having someone actually able to make her feel things so powerfully that she cannot hold back. She was always ready to drag her home and desperately fill her senses with Lexa the entire night, and now here they stand, finally where Clarke wants to be again, and Lexa is asking her to shower, but is she really asking her to shower?

The green eyed girl almost seemed shy, making sure her gaze was on the ground when the dusting of red started to litter her cheekbones and caress the skin on her neck. Clarke looked, she looked and looked and felt her skin grow hot with the desire to touch the pinkish tint, to trace her mouth on the lines and try desperately to keep the color there.

It was sweet to see Lexa so shy and small but Clarke wanted her to feel confident about a decision like this, about wanting her. So instead of acting according to what her body wanted, she focused on Lexa instead and said “we can just shower, if that’s what you want.” And it made the brunette’s chin lift from the ground so their gazes could meet.

The pink still dusting her cheeks, making Clarke’s blue gaze struggle as it desperately wanted to follow the action. She looked so sweet and Clarke was so crazy in love with her that she wanted to caress her face and whisper sweet nothings in her ear until she was shuddering against her own body. She wanted Lexa to know how much Clarke wanted her, in more ways than just her body.

Lexa looked calm like this, but Clarke was always so good at reading her eyes, and they had something in them almost unreadable to anyone else, no completely unreadable to anyone that wasn’t the blonde. Clarke maybe thought she didn’t just want to take a shower but she wasn’t going to push it. She wanted Lexa to want her. “I’ll get the towels.” Lexa mutters after a while of silence, voice still shaky as she passes Clarke and grabs two from the cupboard. One white and one blue, fluffy and warm, and Clarke knows them to be the softest of all their towels. Lexa sheds her jacket and tosses it on the couch before walking down the hall, but Clarke’s eyes are stuck to following the lines of her shirt, and the way Lexa’s favorite color looks on her. It is so nice to stare at; Clarke could almost be satisfied just by admiring.

_Almost._

The blonde’s eyes trail after her like she’s a magnet and she watches her stop outside of the doorway to the little bathroom at the end. She glances at Clarke with soft green eyes that speak more than her mouth ever could and then steps in the next moment and everything about what was happening felt entirely too significant. Like everything Clarke was about to do, every decision she was about to make after Lexa had crossed that threshold held the power to make or break whatever was happening between the two of them. She didn’t know which choice was the right one, she didn’t know how many choices there even were, but she did know that she was terrified of making a choice at all.

She contemplated her options way too long, but eventually her lust would win out anyways. If not the lust, the need to be close to Lexa the way that they are close, just when they shower, would win itself. She was addicted to showering with the girl, addicted to her silky skin and tangled hair around her fingers as she scrubbed the soap in. She eventually told herself to move and she walked down the hall to the open bathroom door, though she hovered in it like she was the one unsure, watching Lexa as she turned the water on swiftly and spun around, shutting the curtain behind her. The towels were neatly resting on top of the counter top and the mat on the floor had been pulled out already before Clarke had even gotten close to the bathroom door.

Did Lexa want her?

The brunette turns and stares at Clarke hovering in the doorway for a long silent moment before cocking her head to the right. Clarke is sure she looks more like a goddess in this very moment then of all the times that Clarke has seen her. Her long brown locks, silky and curly, cascade over one shoulder as she looks over at Clarke curiously, pretty green eyes light and sweet as they stare after Clarke with a silent question that Clarke doesn’t know the answer too. The blonde’s blue eyes follow the path of hair and she can feel her body warm up and her heart picking up in pace. She wonders if Lexa can tell what she’s thinking by just staring at her like that. She wonders if Lexa can see the desire twisting in her eyes and surfacing on her own cheeks as they as well tint the same color pink as Lexa’s.

Then Lexa breathes into the soft silence of the room and her voice sounds incredible, all soft and low and sexy, and Clarke fights the shudder that runs through her body as she mutters, “Coming?” like a soft question into the space between them. It breaks all the unusual silence of the room and Clarke can finally focus on other noises as well as the pounding of her own heart as Lexa stares at her like that… how can that look even be described? It makes Clarke’s body shiver and shake as she watches her for a few seconds longer before passing the threshold of the bathroom.

Clarke leaves the door open behind her.

“Lex,” She reaches for her because she has to touch, because she is desperate for contact and the brunette wastes no time in closing the distance, grabbing onto her hands and pulling her much closer than the blonde had expected her too. Lexa didn’t look as scared anymore, just soft and gentle and assured like she knew what she wanted and was going for it.

 Clarke felt a little shaky as she thought about what was going to happen, what she wanted to happen, what Lexa will let happen. Lexa looked shaky too outside of her gentle gaze, but Clarke wasn’t sure if that was because she was nervous, or because of anticipation. She kind of just wanted to get the shower over with and take the girl to her bed. She wanted things to not be so unusual and different, she wanted them both to feel confident and ready and absolutely sure of their surroundings. That didn’t seem like it was going to happen here in this bathroom that was quickly warming up, humid and hot with Clarke still in her winter coat, nearly bundled up to her chin.

So Clarke squeezes Lexa’s palms and mutters “Let’s just shower okay?” and watches as the girl looks down between their very close bodies and then she is nodding slowly, like that’s not at all what she wants.

“Probably a good idea.” Lexa says softly and it’s the first uttered tone from the both of them of what had been unspoken between them from the moment they got home. Of what they could do in their shower together that they normally share that may be completely different from all the other times they have shared it and it sets a fire in Clarke’s stomach as pretty green eyes glitter into her own.

_She doesn’t just want to shower._

Clarke doesn’t just want to shower either but she thinks it might be better this way none the less and she finds her hands moving on their own accord to unbutton Lexa’s shirt. She wants to see Lexa’s skin, she wants to feel it as it grows moist from the humid air in the room from the shower, she wants to see it flush pink with her blush and goose-bump to her touches.

The brunette had already pealed herself of her coat Clarke had seen her throw it against the couch right next to that dark pink beanie that had been in her hair before Clarke had pushed it off, onto the cushion where it still lies, motionless and unattended too. Clarke was still bundled up warmly, and she could definitely feel that as the room grew more and more humid from the shower that was already on and heated up. She was tempted to take the coat off herself, but her thoughts and eyes were distracted with dark buttons and a teal colored shirt that covered the skin she so desperately wanted to touch and feel against her own.

The blonde girl sucked in a breath as the skin on Lexa’s chest slowly revealed itself and it was almost ridiculous that she was reacting like this. She had seen Lexa a billion times in even less than this, but for some reason, it almost felt like this was the first time she was _seeing_ her. Because though Clarke had seen Lexa, bare and wet in front of her plenty of times in the last few years, she hadn’t really seen Lexa like this because she had never really let herself indulge and gawk and gaze. She was always quick about her glances, afraid of being caught and rejected.

The only time she really indulged is when Lexa’s back faced her in their medium sized shower and she could let her eyes caress skin and tattoo alike. That tattoo, Clarke loved that tattoo. It looked so good with droplets running down it, binding into skin and flushing her back with life and color in a way that was mouthwatering and mesmerizing. It was unexplainable what it always did to Clarke when she saw it. How Clarke felt when she ran her fingers over the colors. It was a simple design, tree branches and leafs scrawling across her back until they turn into roots and dirt and flowers at the base of her spine. It looks beautiful on Lexa, covering her spine and making her look delicious every time that Clarke is able to see the beautiful tattoo caressing her skin. Though that was about all she ever let her gaze examine in those days, tattoo and skin of her back because she didn’t feel she had the permission to gawk and stare at anything else. She didn’t feel like Lexa would be comfortable if she had, so she never did.

This time was different.

Lexa watched her so closely and shivered to every brush of her fingertips against the naked skin under her shirt. Each button came undone achingly slow and Clarke felt that same thread that had strung out and broken from their first kiss was back and taunting her with each new reveal of skin as she undid each button. She could see the flush that she had desperately wanted her eyes on, and it looked far more beautiful than she ever thought it could. Clarke had seen plenty of girls with their skin flushed and aching for her, she had seen plenty desperate and screeching for release, but none of them could at all compare to Lexa, even as those other girl’s came with Clarke’s name crumbling out in a moan from their throat. Lexa just stood here, staring at Clarke and breathing heavier with each brush of fingertips, and her skin was flush pink and beautiful and damp from the humid air, and she was the absolute most beautiful thing Clarke had ever seen. Just like this, in this very moment and spot. Nobody else could even compete with how attractive and wonderful it is to be this close to the brunette and make her feel the way that she is feeling now.

Nothing at all could compare to being the person that made Lexa want to come. To being stared at like that with heavy green eyes, almost black as they watched Clarke’s fingers and then her face. To the way her plump pink lips part and a smooth tongue darting out to wet her lips because they were dry and Lexa was hungry for her… Lexa wanted her, she did, and that was something that almost took the very breath from Clarke’s own lungs.

Nothing could compare to being wanted by Lexa Woods in this way.

Lexa’s breath picked up an increasing amount when Clarke had finally undone the last button and pealed the teal shirt off her shoulder and from her arms. She dropped it to the floor without ever removing her eyes from the skin she could now see, blushing and beautiful. Clarke wanted to kiss every inch.

She wanted to touch and kiss and nip at each piece of skin she could see, she wanted to taste her skin and feel it against her tongue. She wanted to mark every crevice and be consumed by Lexa in every single one of her senses. But she wasn’t sure how much permission she actually had here, even as Lexa stared at her full of want and desperation to be touched. She had not said that she did want Clarke’s touch that desperately so instead of doing any of these things, Clarke just watched her with her eyes as she reached for the button on her jeans, moving just as slow, and feeling Lexa shiver just as much as her fingers grazed her lower belly.

She let her hands brush strong straining thighs and she thinks she heard herself whimper as she felt the skin goose-bump and blush, and felt the muscles jump to her touch as she pulled the jeans down. They were so tight on her legs, but she didn’t hover, and eventually let Lexa kick them off, and over to where her teal shirt lay on the ground.

She stands in front of Clarke in only her undergarments and Clarke has never seen a more mouthwatering sight. She’s too afraid to look at Lexa’s eyes but she does so anyway because Clarke doesn’t want to keep staring the way that she is if Lexa doesn’t want her to stare, even though Lexa’s heavy gaze is urging her to touch and touch until she is nothing but a whimpering mess against the counter beside them. When she does find green orbs and realizes she almost can’t find the green in them at all she believes that maybe this is silent permission to touch and kiss and cherish and worship.

So she reaches to test that theory.

But then Lexa is reaching out with her own hands, pulling Clarke’s jacket off to drop it with her own clothes, she tugs at Clarke’s shirt rather quickly, pulling it over her hair and making a small hum to the way that blonde’s locks fall around her body once she has rid the blonde of the shirt. Clarke can’t stop the snort of laughter that leaves her at Lexa’s eagerness as she shoves her jeans down, taking Clarke’s underwear with her. It doesn’t slow her movements as Clarke laughs at her, and Clarke ends up naked first with nearly black green eyes caressing and admiring each inch of skin they can find.

Clarke wonders if she looks that way looking at Lexa.

She assumes that she probably does.

It almost makes the blonde self-conscious the way that Lexa admires and wets her plump lips in front of her like she parched and needs water. She wonders if this is how Lexa was feeling only seconds ago, when it had been Clarke gawking at her like that. She wondered if Lexa had wanted to stare and touch the same way that Clarke has always wanted to stare and touch. She wondered what Lexa thought about her as eyes took their time on each inch of Clarke’s skin until they found her own blues again.

She wondered and wondered but decided she wouldn’t ask and instead found her right hand reaching out to touch the skin of the girl’s belly until she could feel the brunette shuddered against her to the touch. Her eyes were wide, like they had been on the couch before the tree lighting and Clarke really, really couldn’t stop herself from wondering what she could possibly be thinking as Clarke slid her palm along her belly and up her side. She reached out with her other hand and did the same thing, just admiring the way Lexa’s skin felt on her fingertips because though she’s touched Lexa a thousand times before, she’s never really gotten to savor how smooth and nice her skin really was.

All of this was new. So very wonderfully beautifully new.

She unsnapped the bra from the back and let Lexa pull it off of herself, unable to keep her eyes where they had been, staring at Lexa’s face and found them dipping low toward her chest to admire the small perky breasts now in front of her. Again, she had seen this a thousand times but she had never really _seen_ her, and Clarke felt a new ache begin to grow inside of herself that she was not used too.

Stiff pink buds stared at her, almost begging for attention and Clarke found her touch slide from the girl’s side and along her breast, to brush the bud until the girl in front of her made a noise so mouthwatering, so desperate, that Clarke felt she would explode with her own aching.

Clarke didn’t care about her own needs. She cared about Lexa’s. She cared about what Lexa may be thinking as Clarke’s fingers curl around the edges of her underwear and tug down until Lexa kicks them of. She cared about what Lexa thought as she took a step closer so Clarke could feel the heat of her body emanate off of her and practically touch her own skin. She thought about how much Lexa might want to be touched, briefly examining the flush of her skin and the look in her nearly black eyes before sliding both palms along her sides and around her back.

She didn’t want to speak, because something about the air told her that she shouldn’t, and eventually, when she had done enough admiring with her eyes (though Clarke could never honestly get enough), she tugged Lexa toward their shower like she has done a thousand times and watched as droplets stained her skin and snuck their way into crevices that Clarke had yet to admire even then.

This was just supposed to be a shower, despite the pounding of her heart beat, the flush on both their skins, the ache between her legs, throbbing and unavoidable, especially as her hands caressed newly wet skin from warm water, soaking Lexa and making her almost glow to Clarke.

She was so mouthwatering; Clarke wanted nothing more than to drop to her knees.

Lexa watched her with parted lips and flushed cheeks as she reached for the soap and motioned for the brunette to turn around, she did and once Clarke had gotten her hair thoroughly drenched, she soaped up her hair and felt her mouth go dry at the way she watched it wash out and down her back, along places on the tattoo that Clarke wanted to trace with her own tongue. The colorful leafs and brown branches seemed to jump alive against her skin and Clarke found her lips brushing against Lexa’s shoulder to try and tame herself, her body close and Lexa’s skin slightly brushing her own, making the brunette girl shiver to her touch.

She wondered what Lexa wanted as she washed her hair, if Lexa might want Clarke to touch her that way and found her own hands smoothing down Lexa’s back, tracing the lines of her tattoo with her fingertips after the soap was gone, touching all the places she wanted to trace with her tongue and mark with her teeth.

The shower wasn’t mechanical like all of their other ones, but was filled with the want and the desire in the both of them, bodies shivering from aches inside of them that have been waiting a long time to explode. Clarke burned to touch everything, to trace her lips over every curve and caress every scar and design on her skin. She ached and ached in a whole new way from the way that she was used to aching and her heart pounded and nagged in her chest until her breathing could almost be heard over the spray of the water against the shower walls and floor.

She felt her belly twist and the warmth between her legs as she touched Lexa’s skin, and felt the girl shiver every single time until she was turning in the water. Clarke’s arms pulled on her waist, until they were snuggly wrapped around her and Lexa’s skin was flush against her own and it was almost too much. The brunette hummed again, like Clarke’s touch was heaven, and she buried her face in Clarke’s shoulder, mumbling against her skin something that the blonde couldn’t understand. She urged them to switch places after they had finished Lexa’s hair and started on Clarke’s. Lexa didn’t touch the same way, but Clarke missed her skin as Lexa had parted from her to brush her hands through her hair each time with the soap and conditioner.

And then she felt herself shudder to Lexa’s touches and the cold soap on her skin as the girl spread it across her chest, across stiff buds and squeezing around round breasts. She heard Lexa’s breath hitch behind her, heard the way that Clarke’s body seemed to affect her the same way that Lexa’s had done to her own. She felt Lexa’s shuddering touch down her belly, along her arms, the curve of her backside, which Clarke knows her slender fingers gripped a little bit before passing down her legs and back up, along her thighs, inside of her thighs, across her wet heat until Clarke was moaning and falling into her back like her heart was going to explode out of her chest. Clarke was soaped up, her entire body full of the beautiful scent of Lexa’s body wash, not her own, and she felt her breath leave her chest as fingers brushed between her swollen lips and caressed wet skin, skin that was wet for an entirely different reason then the water that rains down on them.

Lexa mumbled against her ear something along the lines of “you’re so beautiful,” but Clarke wasn’t sure because she could barely hear as Lexa’s other arm snacked around her body and pushed her against the brunette so Clarke could feel the brunettes nipples brush against her back and it was too much but not enough all at the same time. It sucked the life from her chest as her head fell back against the girl’s shoulders when slender fingers brushed up through her folds to an aching throbbing bud that was dying to be touched.

Clarke moaned, deep and loud in her throat as the girl’s fingers brushed around her clit, shifting and brushing and making Lexa shudder against her back. She nipped at Clarke’s ear, muttered something else that Clarke couldn’t quite make out with such pleasure fogging up her thoughts an Clarke found her own hips, pushing forward into the hand and her own hands reaching up to tangle in wet hair, tight and desperate as her hips moved to meet the circular movements of the girl’s fingertips.

Clarke had never felt this way for anyone. She was desperate and needy and wet… so, _so_ wet. Her skin burned and her body ached for release and for Lexa’s touches and kisses and gentle caresses against her skin. She needed to come, but she needed Lexa to make her. She needed to make Lexa come, more than she needed herself to come. She burned and ached and throbbed and pulsed into two slender fingers that were barely touching her, brushing against her bundle of nerves until Clarke was turning into putty against them.

Maybe it’s the tension that had been there so long, the same thought she had, had before about becoming so wet so easily for this girl. Maybe it was the tension, so unresolved and needing for so long that has her almost coming against the press of two fingers just circling her clit, not even directly touching the pounding bud. Lexa bit at her earlobe and lifted the hood away from her clit so she could press against it and Clarke was done. She was done that easily, gripping Lexa and arching into her as she comes with a cry, a whimper that almost sounds like her name. Warmth rushes through her body and she can feel the wetness climbing down her thighs and blending with the warmth of the shower. She can see white in her vision and feel the pleasure traveling through every inch of her body until she is slumping against the girl behind her and Lexa’s touch has soothed her down, and her lips have sucked against the mark behind her ear so it will be purple and bruising and noticeable by tomorrow.

It doesn’t take long for Clarke to recover though. She has thought about this for so long, thought about Lexa for so long, needy and wet and pulsing around her own fingers that she is ready within minutes to see it happen. She makes them switch places again so she can soap up Lexa the same way that the brunette had done to her. They had permission from each other, unspoken but given none the less, to touch each other this way, so Clarke fingers smoothed out along tan skin and caressed lightly but not quite in the way the flushed pink skin wants as she admires and savors the feeling. Lexa shudders to each of her touches, clearly on edge already from Clarke coming apart against her and it makes Clarke’s belly twist just thinking about Lexa being thick and heavy and wet between her thighs.

She wants to drop to her knees.

Clarke finished soaping her up and washing the soap off as best as she could without actually touching Lexa in the same way, despite how desperate they both were for it. Clarke got brave, because this wasn’t just a shower, not after Clarke had come the way she had, so easily against Lexa just moments ago. This wasn’t just a shower and Lexa desperately needed her touch. She tugged the girl’s waist until she was flush against her, and Clarke could shiver at the way her skin felt against her own yet again. Each curve fit with hers and Lexa made a needy noise in the back of her throat as Clarke’s hands trailed up her back and traced the edges of her tattoo.

Lexa hadn’t wanted it to just be a shower either and Clarke really knew that as the girl’s mouth found her own. Her fingers gripped Clarke’s wet hair tightly, like she was afraid Clarke would leave her here to grow cold and handle herself and Clarke found her arms holding Lexa completely flush against her to the point that she could feel absolutely nothing else because she didn’t want too. Having Lexa against her like this felt so good, and she’s never gotten to do this quite in this way before this shower and now Lexa was kissing her too and it all felt almost unreal.

Kissing Lexa was Clarke’s favorite thing to do. They haven’t gotten to do much of it but despite that, every time was like a new rush, washing over Clarke and making her wet and needy until she was sucking on Lexa’s tongue and caressing her skin because she just couldn’t get enough. She explored Lexa’s mouth and felt the girl moan to each stroke of her tongue against Lexa’s. Clarke swallowed each sound, savoring the desperation and growing wet and ready yet again for Lexa because of course she would. Lexa moaning because of her would start anything up and maybe Clarke had just come but she needed more, she needed Lexa. She needed Lexa to come.

Her lips were insistent, and her tongue found Clarke’s rather quickly once she had run it along Clarke’s teeth. She made another noise, deep and needy in her throat as Clarke’s tongue met her own and it made Clarke shiver, and the warmth between her thighs was already heavy enough from just coming and growing ready again. She was dripping slowly down her inner thigh some more, still blending with water and throbbing for more as Lexa held her tightly to her mouth. She felt again like she was about to explode…. Clarke couldn’t stop the way her body reacted to each one of Lexa’s touches, and she really was so good with her mouth and Clarke almost thought that wasn’t fair as she kissed the air from her own lungs.

She wondered what Lexa’s mouth would feel like between her legs and it made her clit throb with new desperation as Lexa’s body slipped and brushed against her own from all the water and wetness being shared between them.

Then Lexa’s fingers rubbed against that place right under her ear that had driven Clarke crazy and it made a growl rumble up through Clarke’s throat until she was pressing the brunette girl against the shower wall and lifting her straining thighs so they could wrapped around her waist.

Her own growl was met with a whimper from Lexa as she was lifted against the shower wall, and her hands shook in Clarke’s hair as the blonde’s fingers trialed along her body, touching and feeling and savoring each movement and twitch of muscle. She kissed Lexa hard, and swallowed all of her sounds, grumbled against her mouth as Lexa’s fingers tightened in her hair when her hand lowered.

She was desperate to come again but she was also desperate to make Lexa come. She didn’t just want Lexa to come though; she wanted her to come hard and powerfully. She wanted Lexa quacking against her and maybe cursing god as she did so. She wanted her body twisting like she was inhuman and her wetness smearing between their bodies until it was all Clarke could feel. She wanted all of Lexa and she wanted Lexa to know that.

She thought about how her first time fucking Lexa was going to be in this shower and almost stopped. She almost stopped because she kind of didn’t want it to be like this. She wanted to make love to Lexa in the warmth of her bed, she wanted to thoroughly listen as she came hard and quaking, she wanted her head to be crushed between thighs and Lexa’s wetness smearing across her lips and chin and dripping into her mouth as she was pushed off the edge, she wanted her breathes and moans being the only noise to fill the room besides the dirty sounds of her sex as she comes. She wanted so many things that a first time in the shower would ruin.

But Lexa knew where Clarke’s hand was going, and her hips lifted against the wall, brushing her center against Clarke’s lower stomach so she could feel Lexa spread across her own skin. It wasn’t just water that touched her, and Clarke whimpered herself at the feel of the warmth of the girl against her body.

She was _so_ _wet_.

So was Clarke all over again, but Lexa was so wet and needy and Clarke couldn’t wait any longer to touch her. So she let her hand glide down to the thickness between the brunette’s thighs and nearly gasped with the girl against the wall as she touched her. She really was _so wet_. Her lips parted from Clarke’s as she sucked in the air in her lungs and let her head fall against the wall of the shower and Clarke watched her as she glided her fingertips through her swollen lower lips and felt Lexa coat her fingers.

Lexa hummed in the back of her throat, her eyes squeezing shut like she was feeling so much she was overwhelmed with it and maybe she was, because that’s almost what it felt like to touch her like this. Clarke had imagined touching her like this for so long, but nothing could compare to actually doing it, and she found her fingers caressing her and pulling up to a stiff and aching bundle of nerves before she could even really think about it.

Lexa moaned like Clarke’s touch was magic, and the grip in the blonde’s hair tightened to almost a death grip. She wonders how long it’s been since Lexa’s had someone touch her. She wonders if Costia was her last and if Lexa has been aching since that had ended. She wants to be memorable for Lexa, she doesn’t want Lexa thinking about the last time at all, so she circles her clit slowly and stiffly even though Lexa really doesn’t need any warming up and watches the way it makes the girl shake and shudder and gasp against the wall.

Clarke can’t take it. She really can’t take it. She needs to mark and touch her as much as possible, so soon the blonde is pressing her body to the brunette’s and her lips are attacking her neck, biting and licking and sucking as her fingers circle around her clit, slow and gentle.

Lexa’s hips push up into her, almost begging for more without actually saying anything and Clarke gets the hint, letting her finger glide through wetness, down until she’s at the girl’s entrance, and then she pulls back from skin to look at Lexa because she feels like she needs the confirmation, that this is really what Lexa wants.

The girl’s eyes shoot open noticing Clarke’s ministrations have stopped and her heavy gaze meets Clarke’s and they seem to just already know what the other is thinking. Lexa just nods, answering Clarke silently and then the blonde is pushing one of her fingers inside of the brunette and watching as she tips her head back slightly, though her eyes stay locked with Clarke’s deep blue gaze and her lips part in a shaky breath as Clarke pushes until she’s stopped at her knuckle.

She doesn’t move much as she gets used to the feeling of being inside of the girl she has loved for many years. She doesn’t move as she feels Lexa’s drenched walls clenching around her finger, and even as Lexa’s hips push forward into her hand because she needs more. She savors the feeling of touching her like this, and is almost fascinated by how the girl feels inside.

It’s Lexa’s gentle “another,” that brings her from her thoughts a moment, and then she’s slowly pulling her finger from the girl to add another. She pushes in just as slow, amazed at the feeling as Lexa’s body takes the digits easily, walls drenched and clinging to her fingers as she pushes.

Lexa is too tight for a third, though there is some space and Clarke would have tried it if Lexa had asked but the brunette didn’t. Instead she just collapsed her head against the shower wall again in quiet relief as Clarke’s fingers buried as deep as they could go inside of her.

She wondered how close Lexa already was as her walls clenched around her fingers, begging them to move. She wondered if Clarke had the same effect on Lexa’s body that Lexa had on her, and she continued to wonder it as she twisted her fingers slightly so her thumb was in a good position to hover over the girl’s clit.

Lexa moaned as Clarke’s fingers twisted and her hips pushed up into her hand almost desperately. A small “please Clarke,” fell from her throat, and Clarke found that she no longer wanted to take this any slower.

Lexa needed her, and Clarke was always here when Lexa needed her, however Lexa needed her.

She pulled a small ways out of Lexa and then buried in as deep as she could go again and began to create a pace that made the girl’s hips respond accordingly, her eyes were squeezing shut again, her grip in Clarke’s hair was back and tight as ever as her wet walls clamped onto Clarke’s fingers as if they never wanted to let go.

Lexa moaned and whimpered as Clarke’s pace picked up, and nearly held her breath as Clarke’s thumb brushed against her clit in slow circles that made Lexa’s body jump against hers.

Clarke swallowed Lexa’s moans with her mouth as she twisted and pushed her two fingers into Lexa, reveling in the feeling of her, the silky warm wetness that was now coating her fingers and palm, the way her body begged to be touched by her. Lexa whimpered and moaned to each stroke of her fingers and thumb, kissed her back like she was dying and wasn’t sure how much time she had left. Her hips weren’t very rhythmic as they pushed into Clarke’s hand desperately. She was much closer than Clarke had thought, and the fact made everything in Clarke burn.

She was going to see Lexa come and she absolutely could not wait.

She twisted her fingers and searched against her walls looking for that spot that has to be inside of her, and when she brushed along the spongy area on her front wall she almost smirked smugly against Lexa’s mouth as she stuttered out an explicit word and her hands tightened in her hair.

Clarke pushed and brushed against the spot until the girl couldn’t stop the sounds coming from her throat as she shook against her hand and ached for her release. She held Clarke tighter and tighter by every second, and Clarke could feel her walls clenching and clenching and she knew the brunette girl was almost there. She knew just a little more and Lexa would be coming by Clarke’s hand for the first time and the blonde was so excited she almost said so out loud.

But now wasn’t the time for talking as she picked up her pace just a little more, brushed her clit directly with her thumb a little harder and sucked on Lexa’s tongue as her body bent and Lexa gasped and whimpered against her mouth, parting from Clarke’s lip so she could tip her head against the wall as she pushed into Clarke touch.

She flushed with her orgasm, coming so hard Clarke was sure she held suspended there for almost a minute. Her walls were tight, much tighter than before, around Clarke’s fingers, and Clarke struggled to keep them inside of her because it was almost like Lexa’s body wanted to push them out. Even more wetness then before gushed against her hand and down her arm and Clarke was almost desperate to drop to her knees and clean her up.

Her hips pushed against Clarke’s as she came, and her clit pounded against her thumb and Clarke has to say, that nothing will ever beat the sight of Lexa coming, especially because of her. Clarke kept her ministrations going until Lexa finally after what felt like forever slumped against the shower wall almost limp and then Clarke was pulling out of her gently and gripping her so she wouldn’t fall.

The girl mumbled into her neck something that Clarke couldn’t understand and the blonde had never felt happier than she did in this moment, holding a now tired Lexa because she had made her come, really hard if the blonde might add, and she was extremely proud of that.

The water had gone cold a long time ago but Clarke hadn’t noticed until just now and quickly shut it off as Lexa lay limply around her body. She mumbled against her ear, “I’m gonna carry you out, hold on to me.” And shuddered to the feeling of the tightest grip Lexa could manage as she lifted the girl off the wall and struggled to set her on the counter after she had managed to open the curtain without really letting go of Lexa at all.

She really wasn’t that heavy, and she wrapped the blue towel around the girl, drying her off as drooping tired eyelids stared at her and let her touch and caress and take care of her as the moment passed quietly between them. Clarke brushed off all the water droplets she could manage before brushing the fluffy blue towel through long brown strands of hair and patting them as dry as she could get them.

Lexa really looked quite beautiful like this, and Clarke stared after her like she was an angel.

Once she had dried Lexa well enough, she pulled one of the bathrobes they rarely use around the girl and dried herself off as well with the other fluffy white towel, watching the brunette try and keep her eyes open as she watched Clarke’s body in the soft light of the bathroom. After the blonde was done she dropped both of their towels next to the pile of their clothes and urged Lexa’s legs back around her waist, feeling the dampness of her center press against her lower belly and shivering to the feeling. She wants to desperately get used to that feeling. Lexa damp and wet but too tired to keep going, she wants to get used to all of this. “Ready?” she asked close to her mouth and when the brunette girl nodded, arms wrapped around her neck tightly, she lifted the girl off the counter and carried her down the hall toward her bedroom, pressing gentle nips to her lips on her way.

The distance wasn’t far so Clarke didn’t struggle much as she kicked her door the rest of the way open and laid Lexa down on her bed. She watched the girl snuggle into pillows under the covers that Clarke tucked over her and close her eyes briefly.

She couldn’t help the grin that crossed along her lips.

“Give me a second,” she mumbled as she lay there, as if trying to find some amount of strength. Clarke found her to be so beautiful, clean and freshly fucked was a look she had never seen on Lexa before and she knew she was going to quickly get addicted to it. She rounded the bed quickly, didn’t bother on pulling on any clothes as she climbed under her own covers and pulled Lexa toward her in the bed. “Give me a moment,” and Clarke just watches as her eyes struggle to open again.

Her green orbs were dazed and tired, but she struggled to stay awake, fighting sleep as best she can. Clarke found her own lips caressing her cheek, her jaw, pressing against her ear. “Go to sleep,” she whispers and Lexa shudders to her. “It’s okay, sleep baby.” And Lexa grumbles like Clarke is extremely unhelpful.

The blonde lets a palm slide under the robe and along Lexa’s belly and grins to the way the muscles twitch under her touch. She lets her lips caress the skin on her jawline, and listens to Lexa’s voice as she slowly repeats, “give me a moment, give me a second,” until Clarke can barely hear her at all, until she finally falls asleep, breathe evening out and gentle as her head slumps into Clarke’s neck and she turns over and tangles her limbs with Clarke’s.

Clarke can feel her heart beating fast and rapid and she knows there is nothing better than this. This is the highest point of her life, and any other moment, besides the ones that she spends with Lexa, will never be as good as this. The fresh new memories of what Lexa sounds like as she comes and what it feels like to be inside of her circles through Clarke’s brain until she can’t hold her own eyes open either, falling asleep to the gentle breathing of the girl she’s in love with tangled against her.

 

 

***

 

 

Lexa woke up to a ringing that was all too familiar. The same tone she uses as an alarm on her phone, but it wasn’t close to her and beside her like it normally would be. Of course Lexa immediately knew why that was the case as she slumped against a warm body beside her, skin on her neck caressed softly by warm breath.

She felt the smile on her face and knew there would probably be no way of getting rid of it all day.

Clarke mumbled against her skin, something incoherent as she gripped Lexa tightly and the brunette’s heart stuttered in her chest until she almost found that it hurt. Thoughts of the night before and memories of how Clarke had made her feel surface through her head and spread through her body until she knows that the slickness between her thighs isn’t just from previous activities.

Clarke was very good with her fingers.

She thought about all the look-alikes that had been in the bed she lays in now, about all the noises she hated hearing and she can now understand why they made those noises. How were they supposed to be quiet when a girl like Clarke was fucking them?

But Lexa wasn’t a look-alike to Clarke, though she had fallen asleep before she was able to give anymore. And now, as her alarm blared loudly through the hallway she found herself contemplating how much time it would take to wake Clarke up and have her coming before she had to leave. Her thoughts ran over the memories of the shower, of Clarke’s desperate whimper and feel of her skin against her fingers. Of her wetness as she came with a sound that almost formed her name but not quite.

Lexa loved it.

She wanted to hear it again and again and again.

She has thought about Clarke coming before, but now she could hardly resist the urge to find out all the noises and different ways she could make the blonde come. Her eyes were open and examining wisps of tangled blonde hair spread out along the pillow beside them. She wanted to know how Clarke felt inside, how it would feel to have Clarke clenching around her fingers, how Clarke tasted on her tongue. She wanted to know what it sounded like when Clarke came by her mouth, by her fingers deep inside of her, maybe by both. If she could get Clarke to make any sounds at all.

Her thoughts ran toward their activities on the couch the day before and to the shower as Clarke had come just to the light touches of her clit and she knows she could coax noises out of Clarke as she comes. She wonders if anyone else in Clarke’s life has made her come with a whimper or a moan ever before, she wonders if anyone else in the world knows what it sounds like when Clarke loses herself in ecstasy and Lexa isn’t sure how much longer she can take just thinking about these things.

She wishes she hadn’t fallen asleep. She had hoped to lead the shower into the bedroom; she had hoped to listen to Clarke mutter and whimpering against her ear all night. She had hoped to make her come until she couldn’t breathe anymore, until the sunlight shined through the curtains… but here she was, after Clarke had made her come so hard and beautifully instead that she could not keep her eyes open and she had fallen asleep like an idiot.

Where was her stamina?

She has plenty, she always has. Lexa could be a very physical person when it came down to sex. She liked it. Who didn’t like it? But here she was, falling asleep because Clarke had made her feel things she never thought she’d ever feel. She didn’t know sex could ever feel like that actually. It consumed her and fogged her thoughts and all Lexa could think about was doing it again and again and again until she was sore and aching for entirely different reasons then she normally aches.

Clarke squirmed against her and she wondered if the feeling on her leg was just her imagination or if it was Clarke, since she did have Lexa’s thigh trapped between her legs and who knows if Clarke had attended to herself some more after Lexa had fallen asleep or not.

Maybe Lexa’s stamina had left her, since it’s been so long since she last had sex. She’d just have to gain it back; because there was no way she was going to let herself fall asleep again before Clarke. There was no way.

The brunette would find this humiliating if it had been anyone else besides Clarke. But the fact of the matter was that it is Clarke, and Clarke would never get mad at her for falling asleep, nor would she give Lexa any reason to feel bad about it.

Clarke huffed against her neck, and Lexa was beginning to burn for her touch, so she rolled the blonde over in Clarke’s bed and hovered over her, thigh still between her legs but unmoving as she kissed and nipped at a delicate neck until Clarke began to stir awake.

“Lex,” She grumbled as if Clarke was having a much better dream. Lexa’s fingers ghosted across skin as she thought of ways to make Clarke completely forget about her dream. “Lexa,” She whined as Lexa’s lips traveled to that place behind Clarke’s ear that was already dark and marked that she had learned about yesterday. She licked and nipped at it until Clarke whimpered and her hips pushed up so she slide along the thigh against her body, and then she moaned because she hadn’t been expecting the sensation and her arms shot around Lexa as her fingers tangled in curly brown hair and tugged so Lexa would look at her.

Green eyes found pretty blue orbs and she swears she can feel her heart completely stop in her chest the moment they meet. “Hear the alarm Lexa,” Clarke says like that’s at all important and Lexa ends up pouting down at her, with her bottom lip jutting out until Clarke is reaching up and nipping at it.

Lexa kisses her, hard and rough and unrelenting as the girl under her whimpers again when Lexa adjusts her position and her thigh slides against her. She can feel Clarke’s wetness spread and she wonders how the girl had slept at all with this feeling between her legs. Lexa’s was practically unbearable now and she had come far harder than Clarke had last night.

“Lexa,” Clarke mumbles against her mouth, pushing on the girl’s shoulder so Lexa backs up again, and she seems to examine the girl above her for a long quiet moment until she’s grinning. She grins widely and brightly and Lexa would think that she hadn’t actually fallen asleep last night, if she couldn’t remember doing so, so well.

She touches the upturn of Clarke’s lips gently, caressing her smile and feeling her own touch her lips as she stares down at the pretty blue eyed girl below her. And then she says, “you have class remember.” And the smile fleets away from Lexa to be replaced with another pout.

“Who cares?” She snaps lightly and bends down to caress the skin of Clarke’s jawline with her lips.

The other girl under her chuckles at her, like she’s funny and Lexa really can’t see how that’s possible when all she can think about is the lust consuming her body and eating her up. “Lexa you have to go, you’ve missed it four times already, remember.” She mumbles her own hands tightening in Lexa’s hair as her teeth nip at a spot below her jawline that makes her squirm slightly, enough so that her hips push just right and her center brushes across the thigh between her legs again and Lexa can feel Clarke’s wetness yet again spread against her, and the girl sucks in a breath like she’s trying not to make any noise.

Lexa presses into her firmly, wanting to hear her noises.

A moan catches in Clarke’s throat. “Later Lexa,” She says delicately, almost longingly as Lexa slides her thigh against Clarke again and pulls back just enough to see the flush of the blonde’s cheeks and the knit of her eyebrows as pleasure surfaces along her features. Clarke looks so good like this, below her, lips parted, moans catching her throat, pleasure shooting through the body below her. Lexa is completely enamored by her, by the view of her, by the way she feels against her thigh.

What had taken her so long to get Clarke like this again?

Oh yeah… _love_.

She looks like an angel. So flushed and ready for Lexa. The brunette could easily get used to the sight, wants to desperately get used to the sight, really wants to get used to the face Clarke might make as she comes and the noises that will inevitably leave her throat. She’s never been this excited to get someone off before, and she has to calm herself down so she doesn’t dive in a like a teenage boy.

“Later meaning now?” the brunette quirks a challenging eyebrow at the blonde girl and it bubbles a laugh from deep in Clarke’s chest that makes Lexa feel light and her heart flutter. _That’s such a beautiful sound._

“Later meaning later… when you get home if you want too.” Lexa leans down and begins to pout right before she kisses Clarke deep and hard on her mouth, shivering to the blonde’s tightening grip and gasp as she presses her thigh more firmly into her and can feel her clit throb against her skin. Clarke wants her, desperately, and the blonde is trying to make them both wait. It doesn’t make any sense.

“You want me now though,” Lexa says simply after puffy pink lips part from her own once again, as a moan catches in the throat of the blonde girl when Lexa slides her thigh just right against her yet again.

“I want you all the time Lexa.” She shuffles her fingers through the girl’s hair. “I want you now but we don’t have the time.” Clarke leans forward until her nose brushes Lexa’s and she whispers over her lips. “I’ll want you so bad all day, and I’ll want you just as much when you get home, maybe even more so then I do right now.” And Clarke’s hips twitch and her center slides along Lexa’s thigh like she’s trying to prove some kind of point.

It twists Lexa belly and sets a fire inside of her chest, heating her up and she can feel the wetness sliding down her own thighs as she thinks about Clarke alone, all day in their house, needy and wet and wanting her… She wonders if Clarke will wait for her, if she’ll try to tame the ache… She wants Clarke to wait; she wants to be the only one to tame the ache today.

“Don’t touch yourself while I’m gone.” She demands, but it’s gentle and sweet even as the demand comes out and Clarke is grinning at her and raising her eyebrows in amusement that Lexa doesn’t often see in her gaze.

“Is that so?” She questions lightly over her lips, her smile not disappearing in the slightest.

“Please?” Lexa offers after a moment, and Clarke just nods her head once, to show Lexa she understands before she is kissing her gently and long and sweet and it’s such a beautiful kiss, a kiss that makes Lexa forget that she has to wait at all, and she’s pushing her thigh against Clarke again, wanting to hear her sounds and Clarke does not disappoint, moaning against her mouth and hips twitching as if she was forgetting too.

But she didn’t forget.

She pushed Lexa off of her and climbed out of bed, grinning at Lexa as gentle green eyes followed her movements and caressed her curves. Clarke was beautiful, so very beautiful, especially when the gentle sunlight from the open curtain curved around her body and lit it up in a way that made Lexa’s mouth water.

_This class wasn’t really important was it?_

“I’ll go make you some coffee.” Clarke moves around the bed until she’s near Lexa, and then she’s gripping the white robe and urging Lexa up onto her feet. She brushes the robe off of Lexa’s shoulders and lets her eyes caress the skin the way that she had done in the bathroom, the way that she can’t seem to stop doing ever since she seemed to have permission to do so. The look made Lexa feel beautiful, not scared as a look like that should. She found confidence in knowing that Clarke seemed to want her so badly for just her, even as she looks a mess, because Lexa definitely know she looks a mess, Clarke still wants her just as desperately, just as much as she always does.

And Lexa is afraid of it, of course she is, but she feels something else, strong and beautiful and powerful in her chest as Clarke pulls that same white robe around her own body and ties it in the front without taking her eyes off of Lexa’s skin. Those blue beautiful orbs are so telling and Lexa could look into them forever, she really honestly could.

She touches Clarke’s cheek, tips her gaze up until their eyes are meeting, and then she kisses Clarke. She kisses her soft and gently. She kisses her deeply but not rough and hard the same way she had in the shower the day before. She kisses her to let her know that she is feeling things for Clarke that even though she cannot say them out loud, she cannot stop thinking them. She does not want to run, but she wants to stay, desperately wants to stay and desperately wants Clarke to want her to stay. She wants to feel this way every morning, waking up with a throb between her legs because of the blonde, waking up with a pounding heart because she is so, so, _so_ in love with her. Waking up in love and needy and warm and safe because Clarke is hers and she is Clarke’s.

She is going to ask, when she gets home, she is going to ask formally, the way that people are supposed to ask, for Clarke to be her girlfriend. She’s going to take her out to dinner, one of those fancy places in town that would normally take months to get into but Clarke can just call up and get a seat immediately because she’s a local celebrity. She’s going to pay for the whole thing, get one of those private booths with the low lights and sectioned off walls. She’s going to be gross about her compliments, she’s going to feed Clarke food like those couples do in the restaurants that she hates, she’s going to mumble things in her ear that will make Clarke desperate to get home and get to their bedroom and she’s going to ask her, very softly and sweetly to be her girlfriend. And maybe she can’t get the three little words out of her mouth but hopefully for now, Clarke will find this to be enough, will say yes to her proposition, won’t mind labeling it since Lexa doesn’t want anyone else and she is almost sure that neither does Clarke.

If Clarke were to bring a look-alike home after last night Lexa would surely die.

When they finally part Clarke is breathing hard against her lips, sucking in air because they were probably kissing far longer and far deeper than Lexa had originally intended to do. Clarke’s grip on her hips is tight and digging into her skin but she doesn’t care about the slight pain of her nails. She welcomes it as Clarke steps very close to her and struggles to open her eyes, dark and much heavier than they were when she first woke up.

“You better leave now before I tie you to the bed.” Clarke says lowly, her voice coming out all husky and deep and it makes Lexa burn with the way that it washes over her. She wants to smile but all she can feel is the throb in her clit once the words leave the blonde’s mouth and she’s finding Clarke’s hair again to kiss at her lips desperately, trying to soothe the ache she was sure was going to kill her.

She was hoping she wouldn’t become this desperate for Clarke all the time, as she has a life to attend too and this feeling between her legs was surely becoming a distraction from her goals. Though Clarke kisses her back with the same desperation, she seems to have more resilience and Lexa is almost in awe of it as Clarke shoves her a few feet away from her. She licks her lips, as if to savor the taste of Lexa on her mouth before huffing and storming out of the room like Lexa was the most obnoxious person she knew.

It made the brunette laugh, loud and throatily as she struggled to ignore the twist of her belly as she found clothes. She dressed halfway quickly and kept smiling. She couldn’t wipe the damn smile from her face, and didn’t look into the kitchen as she moved her way to the bathroom. She hadn’t put her pants on yet clearly for the sole purpose of cleaning herself up, because she was dripping down her thigh and Clarke’s wetness still sat heavy on her skin and it was ridiculous how wet she could be for one person. She wondered if it was normally to feel like this for someone, or if Lexa has always felt things more extremely then others. She had been told when she was younger that her mother was a very sensitive person, perhaps she had passed that on to Lexa and she now felt things too much.

She kind of hoped that wasn’t the case as she brushed the warm wet washcloth between her legs to wash away some of the wetness, shuddering slightly as she brushed herself a little too closely. It was ridiculous that she was this sensitive and desperate. She shouldn’t have fallen asleep last night, she wouldn’t be feeling this way if she had finally, finally gotten to touch Clarke and be touched by Clarke in all the way that Lexa had thought of and dreamed of.

They had let very little tension out in the shower and Lexa was going to have to spend all day aching with it.

Once she had brushed her teeth and applied her make-up, Lexa picked up the discarded clothes and towels on the floor and exited the bathroom with them, dropping them in the hamper in the hall, except for Clarke’s jacket, where she flung it onto the couch next to her own. She smiled as she thought of their shower, smiled as she saw Clarke pouring coffee into a cup and adding sugar the way Lexa likes.

She was in love and aching with it.

She was in love and so fucking _happy_.

Clarke turned to finally look at her again and her robe had partially opened, probably in her busyness to make coffee, and Lexa found her eyes caressing skin with amusement and admiration rather than the same desperation that had been shooting through her body moments ago. She was afraid of not having time but the truth was that she and Clarke had lots of it. She wanted to make love to Clarke like the world was ending tomorrow but she was forgetting that it actually wasn’t. She was forgetting that the skin that blushed pink under her gaze was going to be there later for her to touch and savor and _love_. She was forgetting about all the time her and Clarke actually had together.

Though she couldn’t honestly say that the beautiful girl in front of her, crossing the (sort-of) threshold from the kitchen into the living room, was hers, she could hope that Clarke would say yes to becoming hers and then they would really have all the time in the world together. And maybe that should be scary, and maybe it was a little bit, but it wasn’t enough to make Lexa panic as the girl handed Lexa a cup of coffee that the brunette took and gulped lightly with green eyes still easily attached to that of soft blue ones in front of her.

“I got your phone.” Clarke says, pointing to the device on the counter and Lexa just nods, not taking her eyes off Clarke. The blonde seems to notice that, and Lexa watches the curve of her eyebrows as she grows curious and more aware of the way Lexa is watching her, and then she is blushing because Lexa is looking at her intimately, in a way that most anything considered intimate, cannot compare too.

Because Lexa is in love and she is not entirely afraid of it anymore.

“You,” Lexa breathes, taking a step closer as she caresses Clarke’s cheek with her right hand, and revels in the way the blonde seems to melt to her touch. “Are so beautiful.” She whispers lightly above her lips. “Go to dinner with me?” The brunette whispers and it makes the blonde snort out a laugh slightly until her expression is sobering because Lexa is still looking at her like that and it seems to scare Clarke a small bit but Lexa cannot help the gaze.

“Where?” Clarke asks after a moment, and she follows Lexa’s eyes as green orbs wander off to caress the features of Clarke’s beautiful face.

“One of those really expensive fancy places, you’re favorite one. I don’t care. I’m paying.” She whispers like if she’s too loud it’ll break everything that this moment has created. Clarke is almost shaking to her touch but she seems to manage to hold herself back and then she is looking at Lexa’s lips as she mumbles.

“Of course I’ll go to dinner with you.” And Lexa kisses her after, soft and deep and very rough and sloppy all at the same time. It makes Clarke whimper into her mouth and grip her hair to keep her mouth there and Lexa wonders if she will ever grow tired of kissing Clarke.

She assumes easily that she will not.

“Fuck, go Lexa Jesus Christ.” Clarke complains pushing Lexa away from her, but grinning the same as Lexa does, grabbing her jacket and beanie off the couch to pull over herself. She grabs her phone and keys on her way out, glances at Clarke once, twice, maybe three times before she pulls the door open and shut behind her, leaving the blonde inside to wait for her until they can have dinner tonight and Lexa can finally, finally ask her to be her girlfriend.


	7. December Ice Cream Dates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa's plan to take Clarke on a date and ask her to be her girlfriend gets a little rearranged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyy guys, I'm so sorry for the super long wait. I started adding a bunch of stuff to this story so I had to take the time to prefect it and make sure it was ready all over again. I've done that now, so the rest of the story should be up and finished now. This is honestly my favorite thing I've ever written, so to the few people reading it and enjoying it, I'm really glad and thank you so much. :)
> 
> The last chapter will be posted next Thursday. :D

She literally could not wait. She was more excited than she had ever been in her entire life, for anything. She isn’t really sure why the significance of the situation wasn’t scaring her; it was just making her heart pound with thrill and possible opportunity. She wonders which restaurant Clarke had picked, she doesn’t even know if she actually has a favorite of those kinds of places. She should know something like that, but she and Clarke didn’t usually go to fancy venues. They liked quiet cafes and staying in. This was definitely different for them and though situations such as the one they were entering into usually stressed the shit out of Lexa, she couldn’t seem to find any worry in her heart.

She was almost sure Clarke was going to say yes. Almost sure because there was a part of her brain, the dark and lonely part, that wouldn’t allow her to be 100% positive, but sure enough that she was confident to even ask the question in the first place. Just the thought of asking Clarke to be her girlfriend shot a small thrill through her while she drove. She actually believed she was over excited about this. Her heart was pounding faster than it usually would and she kept squeezing the steering wheel a little too tightly every now and again and she had to tell herself to loosen her grip.

She couldn’t even remember a time that she had ever been this confident about something either or this sure about it anyways. She’s always second guessing everything, thinking far too much about things and analyzing them too much in her little head. But that’s not what she was doing with this. She wouldn’t do that with this because she didn’t want to lose the large amounts of confidence she seemingly had. She was afraid if she thought too much on it, she’d second guess herself, as she always does, and lose all the courage she had built up to ask Clarke to be her girlfriend and she really didn’t want that to happen.

She wants Clarke to be her girlfriend more than she wants to stay home all the time and if anyone thought about it, where Lexa was concerned, that was a significant situation for her. Clarke was safer than home was to Lexa and the brunette found that to be extremely interesting because it wasn’t so long ago that she found these feelings for Clarke to be more of a weakness or a very terrifying and troubling thing, than anything else.

She doesn’t feel weak at all though, she just feels happy.

She was staying and she wanted to stay and she was going to commit (even though she kind of already had committed to Clarke a long time ago), she was going to wear a label along her forehead and she was going to do it proudly. She just hopes that this is what Clarke wants too. The only thing she’s afraid of right now is the possibility of Clarke saying no, because Lexa has absolutely no idea what she would do with that.

She can almost hear her voice those many nights ago _“I’m in love”_ echoing in her head as she drives down street after street. The desperation in her voice, the heartbreak, the way that Lexa had felt hearing her say it. It all seems so distant now, so utterly distant, like Lexa had become a whole new person. Reality was that she really wasn’t a new person; not really, she was just really in love. Deeply, achingly in love with a girl and that fact was far more beautiful than anything else because Lexa had never been in love like this before.

Love hadn’t ever gone over very well for Lexa in anyway, no matter what kind of love it had been. She had loved her parents but they had left her. Her mom not really by choice but her father had chosen substance over family and she hadn’t seen him since she was seven, erasing most of Lexa’s memories of him so she was only left with a horrible disfigured image of a man throwing her against a wall when he couldn’t find the drugs he was looking for because Lexa had flushed them down the toilet. That put her in the care of her deeply religious fanatic uncle who at the time he had received Lexa had already believed her to be “corrupt” or something along that line of thought.

Lexa doesn’t really identify most religions with that of the way her uncle had acted and treated her back then. Some people were just a little crazier than others and that’s just the way it was, the brunette knew that. It wasn’t the religion or belief in something that made a person hateful and Lexa still found some belief in god even if it wasn’t much. She wasn’t afraid of religion but usually afraid of people. She had grown up with her uncle who was mean and unaccepting and would lock the door to her room at night as if she deserved it, like he feared her escaping in some kind of way and becoming even more corrupt than he had originally thought her to be. The man had, had problems that was for sure.

Lexa had never loved her uncle, so his actions had never quite broken her heart the same way that her father’s may have. But her uncle did have a son whom she loved very much after she had gotten close to him. Lexa wasn’t good with people, she never has been, but she and Aden were kind of stuck in the same situation.

He was a little younger than Lexa when she had first moved in. He was always very nice and very sweet with her but very quiet at all times. Of course, Lexa had quickly learned why he was quiet not long after she had settled in; it was about the only way to survive in that house. She was quiet until she turned eighteen and decided that quiet wasn’t going to do it anymore.

But that wouldn’t of happened if the Aden hadn’t of died.

People Lexa loved never stayed and it hurt too much when they left and she was always afraid of it. People Lexa loved didn’t find her important enough to stay and maybe that wasn’t fair to the ones that have gone against their will like her mother and Aden and even her aunt that she moved in with after she turned eighteen, but the fact of the matter was, no matter how irrational, Lexa still thought that way. Still hurt that way when she remembers them.

But with Clarke… with Clarke things were different. Lexa wasn’t afraid to love her, at least not the way she had been when she first heard Clarke’s voice whisper _“I’m in love”_ into the cold dark of the hallway. But coming to the realization that Clarke is in love with her was what she was afraid of, not loving Clarke because she has loved Clarke for so long that it wouldn’t at all make any sense for her to say she’s afraid of loving her.

Maybe she should be afraid because it’s not like she had a choice in falling in love, her heart did that on its own accord, and she had fought it for a while but eventually lost the battle. But she wasn’t afraid, at least not right now. Not as she drives home in her little car, speeding a little too fast so she can see her, and brush blonde hairs from her face and kiss her because she’s missed her all day and maybe she can brush her fingers between the wet warmth between the girl’s legs because she’s been waiting for her all day and she’s probably soaked if she listened to Lexa.

Lexa hopes she listened. She desperately wanted to be the one to tame the ache.

She wasn’t afraid as she thought about the dress she was going to wear, the tight red one that Clarke had bought her when they were in New York City a couple months back. She liked it, it made her feel sexy, brought out the curves of her body and if she remembers correctly she knows Clarke couldn’t stop staring at her, though it was a fact she had forced herself to ignore at the time.

She wondered what Clarke would wear, if she’d put on blue because she knows Lexa likes that color on her, or maybe she’d wear Lexa’s favorite color because she’s done that to the brunette before, and she squirms in her seat at the thought, forcing the image out of her head so she can focus on driving instead of crashing into a poll.

She can’t wait to ask her, and it’s going to be a struggle to hold in the question the moment she pops through their front door. It’s going to be a struggle because she’s been thinking about how she’s going to say it all day, the speech she’s going to make, how she plans on starting it. She keeps repeating it in her head because she’s afraid she’ll forget it and can feel her hands tap impatiently on the steering wheel when she has to stop at a red light.

She is like a child waiting for Christmas, and in a sense, it could be looked at the same. She’s celebrating Christmas with Clarke, her Clarke. There are lights on her house and a tree in her living room and presents with her name on them under the tree. She had never thought that Clarke would ever want to celebrate Christmas again, not with the memories this time of year usually holds. She had never thought Clarke would ever want to celebrate anything again, she barely let Lexa say happy birthday when October rolled around.

But Clarke was trying the same way that Lexa was and the brunette would surely not let that go unnoticed. How could she? She has thought about Clarke being her girlfriend for longer than she can admit. The first time they actually spoke to each other around tenth grade at someone’s party, she hadn’t had much but Clarke was high and called her beautiful and she had thought about it many times afterwards like she had been star-struck.

Clarke had been a good girl gone bad by this time and Lexa already had a reputation because she was a partier who liked girls when she lived with a preacher. They fit together like puzzle pieces, not really belonging anywhere, not caring about belonging anywhere, until they met each other.

Lexa had thought about being Clarke’s girlfriend all of high school but had never asked because she lived with her uncle, because she’d have to hide her and that wasn’t fair, because Lexa wasn’t good enough. Perhaps, in a sense, Lexa is still not good enough but it’s a thought that crosses her mind less and less because Clarke doesn’t seem to care about that. Clarke just wants her, or seems to anyway.

This light seems to be taking forever, and she grunts impatiently at it as she stares like her gaze alone can make it change colors. She taps on her steering wheel impatiently and glances at her phone as it lights up ringing. She reaches over for it, answers it and presses it to her ear with a soft sigh, eyes training back on the long sitting red light.

“Lexa, thank god you answered I need your help.” Anya sounds distressed, voice coming out in a panic through the small speaker and it makes Lexa sit up in her seat, eyebrows shooting up on her forehead. Lexa feels her pulse spike, and she wonders what could possibly have Anya sounding so distressed? It’s hard to get her at such a level, so whatever it is Lexa knows it serious, and that flips her stomach uneasily.

She can feel the pitter patter of her heart as a soft “Oh?” leaves her lips in almost a whisper. Her chest tightens because Anya is rarely the type to panic over much of anything. Her fingers on her left hand grip on the steering wheel tightly and she feels anxious as she listens to Anya take in a deep breath as if to prepare herself for what she’s about to say.

“Raven is leaving Bellamy but she went alone and I’m afraid,” the words are rushed slurring together quickly that Lexa can barely make them out. Of course she does keep up, but she’s never heard Anya talk like this, and has no idea why this news would set the girl on such an edge. She finds her fingertips tapping the steering wheel in an impatient rhythm.

Anya’s jumbled words are too close together and Lexa finds herself saying “Whoa, whoa slow down,” so she can try and calm her friend down enough to explain herself. She repeats “Raven’s leaving Bellamy?” in a soft understanding tone and as the red light switches to green in front of her she hears Anya take another deep breathe.

Lexa presses on the gas a little abruptly and jerks forward quite a bit just as Anya speaks up a little less frantic but still very much so into her ear. “Yes, but, she didn’t want me to come but, I should have just gone anyway Lexa, she,” Anya trails off for a moment but quickly picks back up and Lexa finds her grip on the steering wheel grow tight again as she almost impatiently waits. She hears Anya swallowing whatever nerves she had developed beforehand as she glances at a sign that tells her that her street is close and she will get to see Clarke soon, but something about the phone pressed to her ear tells her that perhaps that’s not going to happen.

“The other night Bellamy hit her, like really hard, so she came to me and she’s been staying with me awhile but she’s finally getting her stuff from their house today but she insisted on going alone and he’s home and what if he does something again Lexa? And I let her go alone, I’m so stupid.” Anya sounds more worried and absolutely distraught than Lexa has ever heard her before and as the situation begins to sink in, Lexa understands exactly why she would be as she can feel her own heart begin to pound with worry.

“Okay, I’m turning around. Here’s what I want you to do. Get in your car and head toward Raven’s, I’m going to call Clarke and,” Lexa has no idea what is going to happen when Clarke finds out. This is going to set Clarke off; she is so protective of Raven.

Lexa doesn’t get much time to think on it as Anya interrupts her quickly, almost breathlessly. “No Lexa, you can’t tell Clarke.” Anya snaps abruptly, and for some reason this information not only makes Lexa flinch but makes her stomach flip uncomfortably. Not telling Clarke would be an absolutely terrible idea. Clarke could really help in this situation and how would Clarke feel if she knew Lexa had kept this from her? That just isn’t an option.

“Of course I’m going to tell Clarke.” Lexa practically snaps as she grows impatient with the road in front of her, looking for a proper spot to U-turn quickly. She finds it at the next light, and luckily it’s green as she curves into a safe turn. Traffic is really light up this area so she finds herself speeding a little faster through the open space by pure instinct just so she can get to Raven faster. Her heart was pounding, but she felt unusually calm as she drove, despite the fact that she thought she couldn’t drive fast enough.

“Raven didn’t want me to tell her and,” Anya is scrambling in the background, she’s clearly moving fast and completely distressed. It’s going to do her no good to be this way while she’s driving and Lexa clearly knows that, aware of how dangerous it could be for Anya to drive in this state, she goes on a tactic to calm her down. She’s gotten quite good at doing that with people since moving in with Clarke.

“Anya, you need to breathe. We’ll discuss this after we help Raven, are you going to your car?” Lexa, even though she’s become rather good at this, is still surprised at how calm she sounds. Possibly because with Anya she’s usually the one needing some kind of comfort from her friend rather than the situation being reversed as it is now. Not to mention that her own heart is pounding kind of fast and she can’t stop thinking about what she could walk in on if she doesn’t get there faster and how Clarke is going to feel about this. Oh Clarke is going to be pissed; Lexa already knows she’ll practically have to strap the blonde down to keep her from killing Bellamy right when she hears the news. She never did like that guy very much. Lexa supposes she just has good instincts.

“Yes, tell me you’re almost there, she left ten minutes ago but she doesn’t live that far from me and,”

“Anya please, take a breath. I just passed her street a few moments ago so I should be there soon.” Lexa finds her voice even calmer than before as she assures the distraught girl on the other side of the phone. She hears Anya’s car spring to life and she hopes she is calm enough to drive and Raven is alright. She can hear her heartbeat almost in her ears now.  “I’m going to hang up, try to relax okay. You need to be safe; I’ll take care of things.” She waits for Anya’s sound of acknowledgement before hanging the phone up and focusing on the road. Maybe that’s too big of a promise to make. She doesn’t know the extent of the situation, and Bellamy is bigger than her. She knows some self-defense but is it enough, what if he has a weapon? Is it that serious? How long has this even been going on between the two and why hasn’t Raven reached out to anyone?

No, she reached out too Anya and Anya is helping her. She again wonders if Raven is alright, and finds her blood beginning to simmer at the thought of some jockey guy smacking her around. Who would do that to Raven? She isn’t sure when she started clenching her jaw but she knows that its begun to ache and she honestly feels like she can’t drive fast enough at this point. She has no idea what she’s going to do when she gets there, but the goal is to protect Raven, so she’ll start there.

She didn’t lie when she said she had only just passed Raven’s street. It only took her about seven minutes to reach it again and turn down her road. Raven’s house was about halfway down the street and Lexa found herself speeding a little too quickly down such a small area, but luckily nobody pulled her over and nobody was in the street to jump in front of her fast moving car at any unfortunate moment.

She found the little house in a compact spot next to quite a few identical ones. Her heart started beating a bit faster as she pulled up into the drive way quickly and pulled the keys from the ignition so fast they flung into the passenger seat. She cursed slightly, took in a quick breathe, and mumbled to herself to get a grip as she snatched the keys back up into the palm of her hand. She squeezed them a little too tightly as she started breathing deeply before shoving the keys into her bag, which she threw around her shoulder as she exited the car as fast as she possibly could, swinging the door closed without looking back. She didn’t even bother locking it assuming that would take too much time and felt her heart rate spiking up quickly when she noticed the door to Raven’s house wide open and only one lonely box sitting on the step outside, open and half full.

She rushed passed the threshold, rubbing her palms together as if to stop her hands from shaking. She thought about calling out to the brunette but decided against it when she heard Bellamy blubbering from the living room a small ways into the house. She found her pace was almost a jog as she quickly moved toward the living area and stopped in the archway to find that Raven was crouched over a shelf, pulling some stuff off of it and placing it into the box.

She almost sighed in relief to see that Bellamy was passing behind her at a safe distance; even though he was muttering things fast and slurred together she was obviously not listening too. There seems to be a safe distance but not as much as Lexa would prefer, at least, that’s what she thought as she moved to step into the room and gain Raven’s attention.

But the brunette girl seemed to have had enough of the boy’s mutterings as she was packing and quickly snapped up at him. “There’s nothing you can say so you can just stop trying.” She sounds fairly impatient and rather agitated and it leaves Lexa wondering how long Bellamy has been pacing and muttering in Raven’s presence.

But her comment sets something off in the taller boy and he manages to whirl around on her and grips her arm to make her stand quicker than Lexa had been expecting, since the amount of space between them had been almost a decent amount he had crossed it so fast that he was next to Raven once Lexa had blinked. The grip is tight on Raven’s arm but it doesn’t seem to hurt the brown eyed girl and she quickly squirms out of his grip and shoves him back from her, where he stumbles a moment before gaining his footing.

He seems like he goes to advance on her as he slurs out quickly, “I’ve apologized over and over, I wasn’t myself I don’t und-” but Lexa has seen and heard enough for the rest of her life. Her blood isn’t simmering anymore, it’s boiling and she’s sure her jaw hasn’t ached this much since listening to Clarke and that look-alike’s conversation as she sat in the hallway of their house.

Her spine is straight and her nails are digging into her palms as her fingers curl into fists. “Step away from her,” And maybe at first she wasn’t even sure if that was her voice that had spoken up between them. She hasn’t ever heard herself sound like that, at least, not in a long time. It was cold and commanding and even a lot sturdier than her voice has ever been in her life. The sound of it boomed through the room and seemed to bounce of the walls, freezing everyone in the vicinity of it like magic. It made Raven flinch in surprise and a quite gasp left her parted lips. It made Bellamy’s spine straighten as he whirled around so quickly Lexa was sure he’d get whiplash, and his face had paled greatly from its normal color. His own eyebrows were scrunching together in surprise and almost wonderment, and maybe a little fury and Lexa was sure she’s the last person either one of the two had expected to see.

“Lexa, I was jus-” and the brunette girl has no idea what he planned on “explaining” to her but she wanted him to know that she would find it useless. Nobody lays their hands on her friends and gets to “explain” themselves to her. In fact, Lexa was sure the last thing she ever wanted to hear in her life was this boy speaking to her or Raven ever again.

“Shut up,” Comes out calm and collect and somehow, Lexa isn’t intimidated by this situation in anyway; it actually boils her blood to think that anyone would touch Raven in the way that this boy has and her fists seem to ball tighter together as new thoughts run through her head. Her heart is pounding, and she is unsure she’ll be able to remain so stoically calm much longer if she has to keep looking at his face. “You are going to leave this house and you are not going to come back until Raven is done and far from here and after that, you aren’t going to call her, you aren’t going to try and see her, you aren’t even going to think about her.” Lexa’s voice is level with each new word, and as she steps into the room, Bellamy seems to flinch at the closing distance. Lexa can think of nothing but getting him to leave and never come back. “If I hear anything about you coming around her ever again, I will take it upon myself to remove your very legs from your body myself, do you understand.” And maybe her lip snarls at the last part and maybe her step forward is a bit angrier, a bit quicker. Maybe the clenching of her jaw grows even tighter after she has spoken, but she doesn’t feel like her actions are irrational. She actually feels like she’s being too nice.

Bellamy looks as if he wants to protests what she has just said and even opens his mouth to do so, but the slight raise of Lexa’s right eyebrow seems to shut him up. There’s a moment of tense silence in the room as Bellamy meets Lexa’s eye line, but as if even that is too overwhelming he eventually looks away in defeat and he’s huffing out a slur of curse words as he’s crossing toward the other side of the room toward the exit, avoiding eye contact the rest of the way and stomping angrily out of the living area. He slams the door, hard, when he finally leaves and the spell on Lexa’s body seems to break, and she finds her anger dissipating a little as she finds Raven’s soft brown eyes. Her heart is still pounding fiercely hard in her chest as the brown eyed girl stares at her, and she tries hard to relieve the tension in her body so she can focus on Raven, but that’s easier said than done.

Raven is looking at her in a way that Lexa doesn’t think she could describe accurately at any point in time. Her eyes wide and watery and surprised. She has something so soft in her gaze, like she is seeing Lexa for the very first time, and though it makes the brunette slightly uncomfortable, she can’t help the soft reassuring smile that upturns her lips for Raven, no matter how tense it may be.  She doesn’t expect the girl to cross the room as quickly as she does and bring her into a hug that’s tight and almost way too much for Lexa in the moment.

It actually really shocks the green eyed girl, since any kind of physical contact with Raven was the last that she could expect ever and she spends a good thirty seconds with her arms spread, frozen in place, as the girl in front of her wraps her arms around her and mutters a soft “thank you,” into her left ear. Lexa’s not the best at physical contact with many people, but she eventually snaps out of the shock and returns Raven’s hug, almost just as tightly because Raven needs it and Lexa finds that maybe she needs it too, as it helps relieve some of the anger lingering inside of her body.

Lexa isn’t sure how long they stay like that or how many times Raven has said thank you in her ear but it almost feels like hours pass. Of course they don’t, but her friend is shaken and grateful and Lexa still has adrenaline running through her veins from her bout of bravery.

Eventually a, “What did I miss,” from Anya’s voice fills up the room, and though it’s full of amusement it masks slight worry. It makes both girls’ jump, though they part slowly from each other, because they hadn’t heard Anya come in. Lexa’s heart rate has significantly slowed back down to a normal rate, though a warm feeling has halted itself inside the brunette’s chest from Raven’s affection.

“Lexa being a bad ass.” Raven responds almost immediately after Anya asks and even manages to say it a little bit enthusiastically, though her voice is thick and heavy with emotion. She’s offering her a big smile, one that Lexa has never seen before and she finds that she could get used to being on Raven’s good side rather quickly.

Anya looks proud when she finds Lexa’s eyes as much as she is grateful, and then she mumbles. “That’s my girl,” and it makes Lexa also smile, although smaller and shyer than Raven had been smiling at her. She hadn’t done very much besides be here, but it seems like that was more than enough for the girls who gazed at her gratefully.

The taller girl is quickly crossing the space in the living room to Raven in the next moment, and grabbing her face as if to check her over almost as if she’s a child. It makes Lexa smile a bit amused as Raven rolls her eyes and jerks out of her grasp lightly. “I am never letting you leave without me ever again,” Anya mutters almost as distraught as she had been on the phone with Lexa and her eyes shine softly with an amount of affection that Lexa has only ever seen in one other person’s eyes in her life, and that’s Clarke’s.

It sets a realization off in her head that makes her heart feel as if it might burst in her chest. “I’m okay,” Raven says softly and then she hugs Anya too, tight and long and Lexa almost feels as if she’s intruding on some kind of intimate moment, even if it isn’t much of one. And after a while, Lexa decides instead of waiting for their long moment to pass that she’ll be productive in the best way possible for Raven and begins packing the box that Raven was packing when she first came in.

The two girls part from each other once they hear Lexa place the first item in the box and they both chuckle slightly at her. The moments that pass her mostly silent, all three girls just putting things into boxes mechanically and smiling at each other every now and again.

After a little while, Lexa finds herself saying, “I had a date tonight,” as she places another item from the shelf in the box, they had stopped to look over at Lexa in this moment, the conversation openly welcome for them all as they pack and pass time.

“A real date?” Anya questions from her left side and Raven is watching her as if anticipating some kind of response, though Lexa didn’t see it as something to wait on.

She gave a slow nod and packed something else into the box before starting to stand. “I’ll be right back, I have to call Clarke.” She left her phone in her car, and she needs to call to let her know that she would be home late. In fact, she was already late, she knows that. “I’ll be right back?” She doesn’t want to leave Raven’s sight if Raven doesn’t want her too so she meets brown eyes and waits until the girl slowly gives her an approving nod and a soft Raven like smile that Lexa is warming too quickly. It’s nice to be on the warm side of Raven’s affections, even though Lexa has received it before, something about it in these moments feels different, nicer.

Lexa nods one last time before turning on the two and leaving the room. She heads quickly out the door once she’s out of the living room and toward her car that she had left unlocked, pulling the door open rather quickly as she reaches for her phone that’s in the centerpiece cup-holder. She brings her phone to life and groans out loud at her 6 missed text messages from Clarke asking where she is and one missed phone call.

She sighs heavily and clicks on Clarke’s name feeling her heart pick up to the same pace it always does when she’s about to talk to the blonde, she presses the phone to her ear and for some reason she feels nervous. She isn’t really sure why, she doesn’t have much to be nervous about. Though she doesn’t want to disappoint Clarke in anyway ever. She’s been looking forward to this all day and now it’s not going to happen, perhaps she’s a little disappointed herself.

The air is chilly and she can see her breathe as she breathes into the night air. She rubs her palm on her jeans as the phone rings but after only a short moment she hears it pick up and Clarke’s beautiful voice rushes through from the speaker.”Lex, where are you?” She sounds impatient and Lexa isn’t fully sure why, but she feels dread as she opens her mouth to speak.

“I’m at Raven’s. I’m going to be late getting home so I,”

“Wait, stop.” And Lexa does, mouth snapping shut as her teeth come into contact with the edge of her lip. “Why are you at Raven’s?” Clarke’s voice is so soft and curious. Lexa finds herself just smiling slightly at the tone of it though her smile quickly dissipates as she realizes she doesn’t know how to answer Clarke.

Does she tell her? Does she wait to tell her until she gets home? Does she let Raven tell her instead? She really doesn’t know and perhaps that’s why she’s so nervous because she can feel her fingers tangling in her hair as her thoughts begin to run rampant. “I’ll tell you when I get home,” She decides after a moment, unsure if Clarke will even go for that.

The blonde sighs. “Okay, when are you getting back?” she sounds disappointed and it makes Lexa’s stomach flip again, unpleasantly because she doesn’t want her to be disappointed ever. She wishes she could touch her. She wishes she was with her right now, and she could kiss her and tell her she’s sorry for missing their date.

“I don’t know, late. I’m so sorry.” She says sincerely into the phone. She hopes that Clarke won’t be too mad, she most likely won’t. But Lexa was looking forward to this date. She wanted it to be right and she was already messing up. It made her more insecure than she had been on the ride home and she has the swallow the lump in her throat as the fear climbs its way through her chest.

Her heart pounds unevenly against her ribcage. “It’s okay Lexa,” Clarke mumbles softly. “It must be important.” Her voice sounds so calm and beautiful. It soothes Lexa’s guilt a little. The blonde had a way of soothing Lexa just by breathing really; it was kind of magnificent actually. There wasn’t a doubt that Clarke was literally Lexa’s favorite person in the world. She hopes the blonde knows that.

“I really wanted to take you out.” Lexa admits quietly, almost shyly. She even ducks her head, though she’s aware she’s by herself, outside, in the cold. It’s quiet where she is, not much traffic down the street and its getting dark.

Clarke’s breath on the line is nice. “There’s always later Lexa,” Her voice is up slightly, as if she’s teasing and it makes Lexa smile very softly, her heart pounding a little faster in her chest as she listens to the blonde girl breath easily on the other side of the line. There’s some silence, but it’s not uncomfortable. And then Clarke says, “Do I still have to wait?” and at first Lexa doesn’t really know what she’s talking about. She’s even about to ask before it dawns on her right at the last minute.

She fumbles slightly for a reply in her head as she thinks about Clarke, not waiting, and it makes her swallow hard where she stands. “If you want too.” Lexa breathes a little faster, her heart rate spiking in time with a fast beating drum. She can hear Clarke breathing and can feel the way her stomach twists as she waits on her reply.

“I’ll wait,” She finally answers after what feels like a century, and Lexa releases a heavy breath that’s loud enough for Clarke to clearly hear through the speaker. She giggles at it, and the sound is heavenly to Lexa’s ears. “I’ll see you soon.” Clarke whispers affectionately, and it takes everything in Lexa to not just hop in her car and drive as fast as possible to Clarke right in that moment.

Lexa is in love and as she starts with, “I,” she feels a lump in her throat forming because she realizes how she was about to say goodbye and she’s never been this accepting of her feelings before. Even if she is too afraid to actually say it out loud, for many reasons, she still knows what she feels, she knows there’s no escaping it… she doesn’t really want to escape it. As Clarke is the safest place she knows, so why wouldn’t loving Clarke be easy?

She’s loved Clarke for so long now; it’s not new just because she’s accepting it.

“Goodbye Clarke.” She whispers softly after a moment and she listens to Clarke’s soft “bye” in response before hanging up.

She’ll ask Clarke when she gets home. It won’t be as romantic as she wanted it to be, but dressing up and playing normal wasn’t really their thing anyway. Asking Clarke in the softness of one of their beds, close and a breath apart, is more like them. It’ll make more sense for them both and it’ll be easier on Lexa’s nerves. Her plans for the day aren’t lost, just moved around a little, and she can handle that.

 

 

Clarke felt a grumble fight its way up through her throat as she pulls herself from the couch. The knocking on her door continued persistent as ever and she found herself wondering who the hell, at 9 o’clock at night, could possibly be knocking at her door. There’s only one person she’d imagine would do that, and that person was with Lexa right now, so she doubts it them. Unless it is them and for some odd reason Lexa decided to knock instead of using her key but that still wouldn’t make any sense, so Clarke brushed that thought off as she began her slow descent toward her entrance hallway.

What she couldn’t get off her mind however was why Lexa was at Raven’s in the first place. What in the world did Raven need from Lexa that she couldn’t ask Clarke about? She knew that Lexa really wasn’t Raven’s favorite person in the world even though she does know that Raven seems to be treating the brunette girl a lot softer than she has in the past since Clarke has told her of her feelings for her. It still doesn’t make much sense though as she doubts Lexa and Raven would hang out together, alone, without the presence of Anya at least.

The knocking on her door distracts her from her thoughts yet again, and she grumbles as she continues her way toward it. The knocking is continuous and loud and she finds herself glaring at the wood before looking into the peephole to check on who could possibly be disturbing her at this time a night. She does not hide the level of volume of her sigh as she sees who it is. She swings the door open as the girl goes to knock again so her fist hangs in the air limply. Clarke would have found the image amusing had it been anyone else at her door.

“Hey gorgeous,” the brunette look-alike croons casually as she winks at Clarke and walks past her without permission to enter.

The blonde grits her teeth out of pure annoyance. “I don’t know what you want, but I doubt I have time for it.” She spits unpleasantly, uncaring of how her attitude might appear to the look-alike who has just intruded on her evening.

The brunette girl doesn’t seem to mind, probably because she’s completely used to Clarke’s distasteful interactions by this point, since the blonde is never really nice to anyone besides the people she is close too. “Gonna have to make time for it darling, script changes.” She spins around in the entrance hallway and looks at Clarke with sparkling eyes and a dazzling smile that makes Clarke want to throw up.

“Again?” She grunts out in annoyance as she shuts her door and twists the lock.

The brunette girl is looking at her with that same admiring and lustful gaze she always gives Clarke, and the blonde knows it’s only her fault that they’re in this position in the first place. She was drunk at the time that she had confided in her and first brought her back to her bed. She was also absolutely wasted and miserably in love, but this was still her fault nonetheless for not having better judgment. She should have known that she’d start a problem that she cannot solve.

Many girls and guys were often after Clarke’s affections and the blonde knew that. Part of it was her job. People often thought that because she was on TV, they had some kind of right to invade her personal space. It was rather irritating, but Clarke did love her job so she often brushed it off, except she couldn’t exactly “brush it off” in moments like these.

“They said it’s the last one, but you know them.” Her smile is blinding but Clarke just finds it rather annoying to stare at so late into her night. She hopes that the girl has other plans and actually won’t try and stay long though Clarke is well aware that she is probably going to have to forcibly kick the girl out of her house. She really didn’t respect boundaries very much and the fact that she’s taken it upon herself to barge into Clarke’s house so late at night is not a good sign. She’s going to want more from the blonde then just too hand her a new script and that fact was surely not lost on Clarke.

“Let me see,” Clarke walks further into the room, past the brunette girl toward the living room. She expects the girl to follow her without her having to say much. She usually doesn’t need much of an invitation, as she thinks she already has one since Clarke has slept with her before. She was really quite irritating. And she does follow Clarke who only glances behind at her once to make sure that she is.

The brunette girl takes it upon herself to flop down on the couch like she’s at home. It only irks on Clarke’s nerves that she can seem so comfortable when the blonde clearly doesn’t want her here at all, if her words and body language aren’t hint enough. Clarke doesn’t sit down with her, only stares down at her with her hand on her hip as she pulls some papers from her bag in the next moment and reaches up to hand it over to Clarke with an innocent bat to her eyelashes that turns the blonde’s stomach in the most unpleasant of ways. She mutters, “got any plans for the night?” and Clarke can’t help the unpleasant twist of her belly as the words leave the girl’s lips.

The simple statement just confirms Clarke’s suspicions. She keeps trying something every time they are together and Clarke absolutely hates it. She knew she probably shouldn’t have slept with the girl when she had to work with her, but she had been making poor decisions at the time. Other than that, it’s not her fault that the girl can’t take a hint, Clarke has told her plenty of times after that she does not want to pursue anything romantic and would prefer to keep their relationship strictly professional and nonexistent after filming was over. “You are just here to talk about the script, and then you are leaving.” Clarke states in a matter-of-fact kind of tone, hoping she gets the point quickly and doesn’t try and persuade her way into the blonde’s pants this time.

She’s going to be rather disappointed if she does, since Clarke’s heart is entirely and completely in Lexa’s hands and the thought of even briefly touching anyone else in even a somewhat intimate way makes her want to actually throw up all over the floor in front of her. “We’ll see,” the girl says lightly, eyes all glittery and happy.

Clarke _hates_ it.

“What did they change?” The blonde goes for another subject in hopes to distract the brunette girl from whatever her plans actually are. She examines the sheets in her hands and notices that there are plenty of highlighted areas in many different scenes. It pulls a grumble from Clarke’s throat and she can’t help the slightly annoyed feeling she gets at the fact that they are supposed to begin filming in two days and they have yet again changed the lines last minute. How is she ever supposed to learn any of them if they keep changing them all the time? It’s unprofessional, and she doesn’t like the way it makes her look as an actress.

“I highlighted all the changes for you, and they added a scene too, at the end.” The brunette girl rests her chin in the palm of her hand as she props up her elbow on her knee and bats her long eyelashes at Clarke. Her eyes aren’t the same green as Lexa’s. Whereas Lexa’s are more of a forest green, hers are rather swampy and Clarke can honestly say that she does not find them as attractive as she did when they had met many months ago.

All her eyes do is make Clarke miss Lexa.

It’s been all day. She hasn’t seen Lexa once all day and their relationship has taken such and intimate turn since yesterday. She wants nothing more than to spend all her time with the pretty brunette girl right now. She wants to take in the scent of rain that she somehow always has attached to her no matter where they go. She wants to hold her hand for no reason and feel her skin below her fingertips. She wants to bury herself in every scent of Lexa she can. She wants to wrap the pretty brunette up in her arms and make love to her until they are exhausted, and yet… real life always calls.

She really does wonder what Raven needs Lexa for.

“You look lonely,” The look-alike interjects her thoughts again, annoyingly so. Clarke can only roll blue orbs out of pure annoyance as she is so rudely interrupted from her very nice thoughts of her favorite green eyed person.

God she is so in love, she is so in love and Lexa might love her too and she can’t name one time in her life that she’s ever been this giddy about a relationship, or even this scared. Because she is scared, she’s fucking terrified. Lexa is practically throwing her heart into Clarke’s hands as well, asking her out on dates and kissing her so deeply Clarke knows she won’t be able to breathe once the brunette finally pulls away. She never imagined that they would be here. She never imagined that she’d have bought Christmas decorations or that she’d be anxiously waiting at night for Lexa to return home so that they could make love properly in Clarke’s bed after they had already made love in their shower.

She never thought she’d get the chance to begin to love Lexa, and yet, things are somehow working out that way. She doesn’t want this look alike, who honestly can’t possibly ever compare to Lexa in anyway, looks or personality, here when Lexa gets back. She wants her gone and she wants to greet Lexa with kisses the moment she walks through the door. That thought spurs Clarke into motivation, her back straightening and her features schooling of any emotion that could possibly be detected at all.

“Thanks for bringing this to me, but I would like you to leave now. Lexa’s supposed to be home soon and we have plans.” Clarke’s voice is bored, the same tone she gets for almost anything though it doesn’t seem to make the girl flinch or even stand from her place on the couch.

She tilts her head to the right, all dazzling smile and easy going behavior that continues to irk on Clarke’s nerves the longer it sits there. “Still pining I see,” She says as bright as ever, standing up in that moment to step into Clarke’s personal space, which she did not have permission to do. The blonde can feel her heart rate spike with her anxiety and her jaw clenches in the next few moments as the girl mutters, “Let me warm your bed for you.” And her hand reaches out to touch her again, without Clarke’s permission.

She’s almost in the process of slapping the girl away when her favorite voice out of all the voices that could ever exist in the world fills the empty space of the living room. “Can you please step away from my girlfriend?” and the statement is said with such aggression that it actually makes the brunette girl jump away from Clarke but all the blonde can think about is the world _girlfriend_ as it seems to play over and over in her head even as her eyes find Lexa’s face. Her features are hard and angry but she looks beautiful, exhausted, but so fucking beautiful. Clarke can feel her heart leap into her mouth as she watches her in what feels like slow motion while she enters their living area.

The look alike just looks beyond confused because the last thing she heard was of Clarke’s pining and unwillingness to try, but now here Lexa was, the girl that Clarke loves so very much, walking into the room as threatening as a person can be and calling Clarke her girlfriend. The blonde thought she must be dreaming, as the look-alike spoke, “Girlfriend?” Her irritating voice seems to bounce off all of their walls but Clarke can’t manage to take her eyes off of Lexa.

Lexa just does that perfect eyebrow thing she does when she’s trying to control something, the brow shooting up briefly as if in a challenge, and then resting back where it was. Her jaw was moving from side to side to signal that she is indeed upset and it was all so stunningly attractive. Clarke really wishes that she had gotten the look-alike out before Lexa had gotten home, but she would just have to make up for that after they finally kick her out.

“Yes, that’s my girlfriend you’re hitting on and I’d like you to leave our house.” She seems so deadly calm. Clarke doesn’t think she could look anywhere else if she tried. Her entire body is frozen in its place. She is unable to pay attention to anything but the beautiful girl in front of her as she tells the stupid look-alike off.

“Alrighty,” The brunette girl whistles in the next moment. “See you at work then Griffin.” Her voice seems to raise just an octave higher than its normal tone as she says it because Lexa is fucking intimidating when she looks at someone like that, before she’s skating quickly out of the room and out the front door, nearly slamming it behind her.

Clarke doesn’t at all care.

The blonde can feel her heart beating hard in her chest as Lexa finally meets her eye line, and those beautiful eyes just seem so extra green to Clarke tonight, she doesn’t know what it is, but Lexa is just stunning without ever trying to be. Her gaze is still angry but it seems to soften incredibly once green melts into blue. But of course it does because she is always so incredibly soft for Clarke, so beautiful and delicate and sweet. The blonde wants to reach out and touch her but she decides to wait for Lexa to come to her as the brunette seems a bit on edge and Clarke is afraid of making the situation worse, or at least, out of her favor.

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Lexa says after a very long moment of silence and even then she hadn’t spoken until they had heard the engine to the other girl’s car start and heard the vehicle leave their driveway. Her voice is soft and suddenly her eyes are filled with the same storm they are often filled with on most days.

Clarke loves her so very much.

“For what?” The blonde finally manages to respond after what feels like ages, but she doesn’t take a step toward the brunette. She wants to kiss her and touch her and whisper how happy she is in her ear to be called her girlfriend, but she isn’t sure quite what Lexa is thinking in this moment and she doesn’t want to push her luck.

 _Girlfriend_ , the label itself is a huge step, especially for Lexa. It’s one thing to think it, but to say it out loud, and impulsively so, can be terrifying, and Lexa looks so fucking terrified.

Pretty lips part and a shaky voice comes tumbling out, the words slightly jumbled as she says, “I meant to ask you first. I just demanded, I didn’t mean,”

But Clarke can only feel her love grow as the brunette sputters out some kind of response and is interrupting with a soft, “Oh Lexa,” and the blonde wastes no more time with space anymore, crossing the distance quickly and pulling Lexa against her body. The green eyed girl just seems to melt to her touch, sinking into her embrace like she had been missing it all day and was suddenly exactly where she belonged. Clarke could feel everything in this moment and her voice cracked as she said, “I would love to be your girlfriend Lexa.” The blonde even whispers it again close to her ear as her arms tangle around her waist and hold her as tightly as the brunette girl will let her. She never wants to let go, at least not in this moment. She never wants to part from Lexa again, afraid that she’ll wake up in the morning and all of this will be nothing but some kind of dream.

“You don’t like that other girl right?” Lexa whispers quietly, her own arms wrapped tightly around Clarke’s shoulder as if to keep her as close as she can get her. Maybe Lexa is feeling just the way Clarke is feeling in this moment, maybe she can’t imagine letting go for all the same reasons.

The blonde can’t help the slight chuckle that escapes her. “I could never in a million years baby,” She backs up slightly so she can look at her favorite eyes in the entire world and then presses forward so her forehead rests against Lexa’s. The moment is as soft as many of their other moments, most of their moments, and Clarke feels incredibly complete with Lexa wrapped around her like this. “I’ve wanted to be with you for so long.” She admits so quietly she isn’t even sure if she actually said it. Her breathe is louder than the whispered words because she doesn’t know if it’s too much, she doesn’t know exactly how much Lexa can handle. Those words however, only seem to make the girl squeeze her tighter and closer.

“I had a whole plan Clarke,” She seems to whine slightly into the space between them, a small pout touching her lips that Clarke finds completely and utterly adorable. “I was going to ask you at dinner but then Raven,” The brunette girl doesn’t finish her sentence. Her eyes suddenly fill with guilt and Clarke has no idea what that could possibly mean but she’s sure that nothing could ruin the happy ache that Lexa has set in her chest from the moment she got home.

Lexa is her girlfriend now and nothing can ruin the high that fact causes.

 _My_ _girlfriend_.

“What did Raven need?” Clarke asks gently as she closes her eyes only briefly when Lexa brushes her nose against hers. The gentleness never fails to take the blonde’s breath away from her very own lungs. Something about being on the receiving end of all Lexa’s affections is just surreal.

“I have to tell you something and it’s going to upset you greatly.” Lexa’s voice is so soft and sweet with her despite the heaviness of her words. Clarke loves her voice so much. She loves the way it sounds when she whispers so closely to her, the way it fills with all of her emotions when they are alone together, when she is with Clarke because she can’t hide her feelings from Clarke.

“Whatever it is, I can handle it.” Clarke squeezes her arms around the girl’s waist and feels her own breathe catch as the girl’s body sinks into every one of her touches. She can’t wait to get to her bed, to take Lexa with her and just shed their clothes and lay together. To touch and taste and feel and take as much time as they want because they really do have so very much of it.

Lexa’s heavy dramatic breath in sparks a small amused smile to trace its way along Clarke’s lips without her permission. “Raven left Bellamy.” The brunette’s voice is as soft as she can get it, and maybe even a little sad. She’s pulled back from her only slightly so that her amazing green eyes can connect with Clarke’s in a way that set’s the blonde heart on a high speed chase in her chest. She looks so serious, and based off the news that’s coming from her mouth, Clarke can’t quite understand why she would be.

“Why would that upset me, I hate him.” Clarke presses the girl closer into her arms, keeping blue orbs on green as they fill with some unspeakable emotions that Clarke couldn’t name if she tried.

“She left him because he hit her.” Lexa mumbles quietly, her eyes so sad that they feel as if they pour into Clarke’s own. It only takes a few seconds for Clarke to even realize what she’s said.

Her brows furrow as their eyes stay connected and the blonde can’t help the sudden shakiness in her voice as she sputters out an, “He,” she can feel her breathe catch and her voice crack. She can feel the anger surfacing in her chest and splintering its way through her blood because she knew there was always something about him she didn’t like, something off in his actions with Raven… Raven who doesn’t deserve this at all in anyway whatsoever. She should have protected her better, should have found someone to get Raven away from him before he could have ever laid a hand on her.

She doesn’t realize how much she’s shaking or how furrowed her brows are until Lexa is grabbing her face between the palms of her hands and smoothing over her brows with her fingertips. The action is soothing, as is most of Lexa’s actions, but she can’t get her mind to stop racing. “She’s fine, she’s staying with Anya and we packed all her things up so she doesn’t have to return to the house.” Lexa had a way of comforting Clarke like no one else ever could. If anyone else had told her this information she would have lost it, she knows that. She has a hard time now not storming out the door immediately just to go to Raven, or maybe to find Bellamy and literally end his life.

“I should have protected her.” Clarke starts, her voice falling quietly instead of being as stern as she had wanted it.

Lexa only wraps her arms tightly back around Clarke and hugs her. “It’s not your fault. She’s okay now, I promise. Anya and I were with her the whole time, and I made him leave.” Her voice is soft and reassuring as she keeps Clarke wrapped tightly in her arms.

“Why didn’t she tell me?” Clarke asks even though she’s not expecting an answer from Lexa. Of course she knows why Raven probably didn’t tell her. Outside of Raven always wanting to do everything herself and be strong, she knows how protective Clarke is. She knows exactly how Clarke is. She wouldn’t want Clarke to overreact or worry, so of course she didn’t tell her. But she shouldn’t have had to tell Clarke for the blonde to know, at least that’s the way she feels about it.

“I don’t know but we can go see her tomorrow if you want, and you can check on her and make sure she’s okay.” Lexa shuffles her fingers through the sides of Clarke’s hair as another soothing action when she pulls back to meet her gaze again, and it really does set the blonde at ease only a small bit. She probably won’t stop thinking about Raven all night, and the brunette before her seems to know that. Her eyes are full of that sincerity they get when Clarke is sick and not feeling well.

The blonde doesn’t know if she appreciates it or not, but she does know that she loves the girl in front of her. She loves her more than she could ever love anything.  “She is okay?” Clarke asks just to clarify and make sure, her thoughts still racing, and as Lexa nods with that same look of sincerity in her eyes, the blonde can feel herself relax just slightly because she at least knows that Raven is somewhere safe and that she had help, really, really good help today.

Tomorrow she’d be able to ask Raven how she was herself, to hug her and tell her she was sorry for not being there, but tonight… tonight she had Lexa here to help her and she knew Raven had Anya to protect her, and Anya was a badass. She has no doubt that girl will have no problem in keeping her safe.

“You okay?” Lexa’s voice breaks into her thoughts and she sounds so sweet and soft and Clarke loves her. She feels her heart beating in her ears as she tightens her grip on Lexa’s waist and presses her mouth to the brunette’s in a gentle kiss that she hopes says everything that she can’t put into words.

She could easily get addicted to the way Lexa takes in a deep breath each time before Clarke kisses her, or the way soft hands feel in her hair. Hell, she was already addicted to it, and she was grateful for Lexa, grateful that Lexa knows just how to touch her, grateful for her being there for her friends and protecting them when Clarke can’t. Lexa’s been her girlfriend for two seconds, but she already knew that she was the luckiest girl on the planet to even have that label between them.

Lexa pulls back from Clarke slowly and the blonde can’t help the way her heart melts as she watches those pretty green eyes flutter open. She’s always so gentle in all her actions, even when she doesn’t try. “Wanna go get ice cream?” the brunette smiles shyly, eyes twinkling into Clarke’s own.

“Ice cream?” Clarke raises an eyebrow at her, slightly amused. “It’s the middle of December, there’s snow on the ground.”

“Any weather is good enough weather for ice cream Clarke.” Lexa says in a matter-of-fact tone that Clarke honestly couldn’t resist if she tried. Her fingers are still wrapped up in Clarke’s hair and she pulls her mouth back to her own, kissing her hard and deep and swiping the very air from Clarke’s lungs before pulling back. “It is also dessert time and I owe you a date.” Her eyebrows wiggle up and down and Clarke can’t help the small snort that leaves her as she watches the action.

“You’re such a dork.” She giggles, though she can feel the affection for the girl expanding wider in her chest as she watches a small blush grace her cheeks. _My dork_ , is all she can think as Lexa’s fingers continue to comb their way through her hair. “Okay, let’s go.” Clarke agrees after a moment, and the answering smile from Lexa is gift enough.

 

 

“I don’t know why you always have to get the super chocolaty one.” Clarke teasingly complains as Lexa is handed over her cone. The brunette can’t even help the smile that eats her face at the cute scrunch of Clarke’s nose as she licks it, though the flavor of her ice cream is distracting enough that she spends a moment just savoring it while they walk their way to a small table in the corner of the parlor.

“You like chocolate, what’s your problem?” She teases back after a pause, elbowing the blonde girl’s side as she licks into her own cookie dough ice cream cone. Cold weather or not, they both can’t help but enjoy the sugary treat.

“You like chocolate too much.” Clarke replies after a moment, giggling slightly as Lexa rolls her pretty green eyes at her. They slide into a booth, right next to each other rather than taking a table at opposite ends, and Lexa doesn’t let the fact that Clarke presses right up against her side go unnoticed.

“Chocolate is the equivalent to happiness.” She offers up as a response, her eyebrows shooting up challengingly in that way they always do. It makes Clarke giggle and Lexa really does love that sound so she can’t help the responding smile that surfaces across her face before she focuses more on her ice cream.

“This place is kind of creepy when it’s so empty.” Clarke mumbles with bright blue eyes surveying the area. Lexa just kind of watches her as she eats her ice cream. She always found it adorable the way that Clarke has to examine everything in a building no matter what’s happening around them. It made the blonde more comfortable so Lexa never questions it.

“I think it’s cute.” The brunette girl offers as a response, her green eyes seem brighter in the low light of the parlor so it captures Clarke’s attention in the next few moments. She turns toward the brunette as she eats her ice cream.

“Of course you would.” Clarke mutters affectionately. She watches the chocolate on the girl’s chin and can’t help the warmth that spreads through her. Lexa really was so special. The way she did everything was just adorable to Clarke; the blonde can’t and won’t take her eyes off of her.

“Your ice cream’s melting.” The pretty brunette girl mutters quietly, her gaze meeting Clarke’s in that moment. There’s a soft pause of silence before Clarke licks the tip of her thumb and whips the chocolate from Lexa’s chin, grinning slightly as a small adorable blush graces pretty cheekbones.

“And you,” She leans over slightly and presses a kiss to the corner of the green eyed girl’s mouth. “Are wearing your ice cream.” Clarke teases lightly with a gentle soft smile spreading across her mouth. Lexa’s blush deepens as she ducks her head shyly and focuses on finishing up her chocolaty treat.

Clarke does the same though she can’t stop herself from peaking glances at the girl beside her and every time she does, she is able to see that Lexa is doing the same exact thing. It’s such a soft first date, everything about it is so them. Fancy restaurants and expensive dinners are nice, but they both would have just felt simply out of place. Here, in their favorite ice cream parlor, pressed up right next to each other late at night, is just right.

In fact, everything about being on a date with Lexa Woods is so very right.  

Clarke’s ice cream has melted down the cone and onto her hand and she grunts as she grabs a napkin from the center of the table to wipe it up. She’s getting ready to lift herself out of the booth to throw the cone away when she feels a gentle hand on her thigh and soft lips at the shell of her ear. “Clarke,” and she feels the shiver run through her like she was being dipped in ice water, except this feeling is good. A tingle up her spine as she’s turning her head just enough to nearly brush her nose against the brunette’s.

“Lexa,” She says breathlessly, and the bright smile across the pretty girl’s face is almost too much for Clarke to stare at.

“Clarke, do you want to be my girlfriend?” Lexa asks all quiet and soft. Her voice an octave higher than usual and her smile brighter than the sun is in the summer.

The question rips a chuckle from the blonde’s throat. “Lexa, I already said yes.” Her voice isn’t quite a whisper, but the level is near one. She can’t help that her own lips are captured with a bright smile that nearly imitates the one on Lexa’s face that’s blinding her eyes and fogging up the thoughts in her brain.

“I know but this is proper.” Lexa’s hand squeezes her thigh and she can’t help the way her breathe catches at the feeling.

“What about us, is ever proper?” Clarke teases, eyes twinkling with her smile.

“I just want to do right by you.” Lexa says shyly, eyes parting from bright blue ones to look at the paper that had been wrapped around her cone that she’s playing with between her fingertips. She's nervous again, that’s easy for Clarke to see, but again she just finds it so incredibly adorable that it only makes her smile grow.

“Lexa,” Clarke places her non-sticky hand atop of Lexa’s that’s squeezing her thigh. “You’re doing just fine, I know how…” Clarke squeezes her hand as her heart picks up in pace inside her chest. She isn’t sure if speaking out loud about how she knows of Lexa’s fears is a good idea, but she’s taking that chance anyway. “I know how hard this is for you.” Clarke finishes, swallowing a lump that’s forming in her throat.

Her hand must shake atop of Lexa’s, because the brunette turns her palm over so they can lace their fingers together and strokes her hand gently with her thumb. “I’m not afraid.” Lexa says quietly into the space between them. Her voice doesn’t even shake, though her pretty green eyes don’t turn towards the blonde in the moments that the words are uttered from her lips.

“Lex,” Clarke moves her head to urge eye contact and that seems to work because soon those pretty green eyes are connecting to hers and it completes Clarke in a way that nothing else can. “It’s okay. Just talk to me if things are too fast, we’ll slow down.”

“I’m not afraid Clarke.” Lexa says again, voice stronger and a bit louder. Her pretty green eyes are filled with an admirable determination that has Clarke’s heart leaping into her throat.

“Okay,” Clarke breathes into the space between them, and for a long moment things are silent between them. Lexa’s eyes, still filled with that same determination, are running across the features of her face, as if contemplating something and Clarke can’t figure out what thoughts could possibly be racing through that pretty mind.

“I’m happy,” Lexa finally says after a while of silence and just staring at each other and Clarke feels her heart melt inside of her chest.

“I am too.” Clarke mumbles as a reply, closing the space between them and kissing Lexa gently, and by god how she will never get tired of doing so. She tastes like chocolate and Lexa and Clarke loves it. She can’t help but deepen the kiss despite their surroundings and mumbles something unintelligible when she feels the brunette’s tongue slide across her teeth.

The brunette’s teeth nip at her button lip before she’s parting from the girl to run kisses along the blonde’s delicate jawline. The feeling is electric and easy between the both of them. Clarke’s pulse pounds hard in her throat as Lexa’s lips pass over it and the feeling is just so much of many things Clarke thought she’d never get to experience. Those teeth nip at that place under her ear and Clarke hears the small noise catch in her throat as her hand tightens around Lexa’s. Soft lips press to the shell of her ear and a smooth seductive voice mumbles into her ear, “Let’s go home so I can take you to bed.” And a soft whimper fights its way off of Clarke’s tongue.

“You are going to kill me.” Clarke whines slightly, sucking in a deep breath as the girl’s lips move from her ear back along her jawline, until pretty green orbs can pour into her own yet again.

“With pleasure maybe,” and then she winks and Clarke can’t help the laugh that fights its way up and through her throat because she literally has the dorkiest girlfriend in the world.

“You’re such a nerd.” Clarke teases as Lexa giggles and pushes into Clarke to tell her to slide out of the booth. The blonde does and lets Lexa take the melted ice cream cone from her hand to toss it in the small bin across the parlor area.

Clarke’s wiping her hand off with a few napkins when she decides to stick a five in the tip jar before leaving. “You two are adorable together,” the tall girl behind the counter says with a shy smile and Clarke snaps her attention to the woman rather quickly, unaware that her and Lexa had gained any attention.

“Oh thank you,” Clarke says with a soft blush gracing her features as Lexa makes her way over to her. “Have a good night.” Clarke says politely, a small smile gracing her lips that grows wider when Lexa places a kiss against her cheek.

“I hope you both do as well.” The girl responds with a gentle smile.

Clarke finds that there is a smile on her face that she cannot get rid of as they walk down the sidewalk toward Lexa’s car. As she glances to her side to look at her pretty girlfriend, she knows that she wouldn’t want to get rid of it, how could she when Lexa Woods is with her?

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think or don't, you do you bud. I reply to comments, thanks for reading. :D  
> Twitters @miselizalycia and my tumblr is [jazzyjazzin,](https://jazzyjazzin.tumblr.com/) hit me up if you wanna chat and follow me to keep updated and to find out more information on my fanfics.


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